Bullock-Prado Gesine - Let them eat cake and cookies, pie, ice cream, and other sweet treats: 75 classic recipes, plus healthy, gluten-free, and vegan versions

Published in 2015 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

Text copyright 2015 Gesine Bullock-Prado
Photographs copyright 2015 Tina Rupp

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930934

ISBN: 978-1-61769-080-8

Editor: Elinor Hutton
Designer: Chin-Yee Lai
Production Manager: Denise LaCongo

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Dedication

For the Fabulous Jasmin 5

INTRODUCTION

M y mother was a dietary contradiction. She was a strict vegetarian, a health-food nut unparalleled. Her Virginia kitchen was a mecca to all things whole grain and sugar free; my school lunches were legendary for their whole-grain, soy-centric weirdness, and I didnt try a Coke until my Nanny slipped me a sip when I was seven. I didnt get another taste until high school.

Yet every summer when we traveled back to my mothers hometown of Nrnberg in Germany, we feasted with glee on pork bratwurst nestled in bleached white-flour buns. She was at once strident in her dietary convictions for everyday meals and supremely tolerant of the most egregious culinary morsels. A perfect example was her love of puff pastry, that white flourbased, butter-engorged patisserie staple: Youd think shed consider it anathema. But she understood the beauty and joy of a well-made pastry and actually gloried in the caramelized goodness of a palmier.

Now that I have the pleasure of being a grown woman in charge of her own dietary landscape, I realize that I am my mothers daughter. I recognize the need to live a healthy life but, man, if that croissant doesnt look damn good. And having had a pastry shop of my own, I found that more and more customers were walking in the door asking for treats that wouldnt put Junior into anaphylactic shock, or that wouldnt pull them into a morass of regret the second theyd polished off a cookie. I had customers who wanted a healthier version of my wares with all the soul satisfaction of the classic. I was confronted with the need to make things gluten free, dairy free, egg free, even vegan. So I made it a mission to keep making the tastiest of treats with all the traditional ingredients in play, but then also figuring out how I could jury-rig them for someone who has celiac disease or suffers lactose intolerance or is sidled with an egg allergy or high cholesterol. To be perfectly honest, sometimes the healthier version is my favorite version (Im talking to you, Chocolaty Chippy Chunk Cookies) and there are times when a vegan cake just blows me away (thats a tip of the hat to you, Figgy Pistacho Upside Down Cake).

With this book, Im giving everyone an option to celebrate with cakes, pies, ice creams, candy, cookies, brownies, and more. Each of the more than eighty recipes here is a classic, at least in my book, and Ive included the tastiest, no-holds-barred version of it. Then I have converted each of those recipes into healthier iterations, in which the glycemic index is lower and the fiber and nutrients are higher. Youll also find gluten-free and vegan versions of each tasty morsel. For every Killer Coffee Cake (), there is a Vegan Killer Coffee Cake, and a Gluten-Free Killer Coffee Cake, and a Healthier Killer Coffee Cake. You get the idea.

In other words, everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too.

MAKING DESSERTS HEALTHIER, GLUTEN FREE, OR VEGAN

What does healthier really mean? Cant you just swap gluten-free flour mixes for traditional flour one for one? And why the vegan option?

First, youll see a healthier variation for each recipe. These arent calorie free and fat free, of course. They do, however, feature fiber- and nutrient-rich flours and mineral-dense sweeteners that are lower on the glycemic index than refined white sugar. Instead of empty calories and fat, these sweet and scrumptious treats offer nutritional benefits.

Next, in the gluten-free variations, youll notice that there are subtle changes to ratios of the ingredients. Thats because if you simply do a one-to-one swap of gluten-free flour mix for wheat flour without addressing the moisture and protein levels in the remaining ingredients, the baked goods can be gummy or dry. Follow the recipes closely for the best results.

Finally, you may notice, as you snuggle by a cozy fire, reading through the entirety of this book in a single sitting (as I assume you will), that I have a vegan option instead of a dairy-free or egg-free option. If this tome is catering to those with food allergies, why not address those issues individually? Well, by creating a vegan option I kill two (figurative) birds with one stone: I provide an alternative for those who choose an entirely plant-based vegan diet due to an ethical or dietary choice while also providing a safe harbor for those who suffer from dairy, casein, whey, and egg allergies or intolerances. This means that the vegan options are, of course, also allergy friendly (except for those in which tree nuts and peanuts are used).

Here are some of the perhaps less familiar ingredients that you may need when swapping out more traditional ingredients in the recipes in this book:

The Egg Replacement Compendium

Eggs perform myriad tasks in baking. When eggs are called for in a baked good, it is very difficult to find a substitute. Eggs act as leavening agents. The most extreme example of their leavening power is when egg whites are beaten into peaks and the resulting fluff is baked on its own into meringues or folded into the ingredients of an angel food cake to make it light and delicate. Eggs also act as binding agents, keeping the ingredients stuck together: Yolks act as emulsifiers, allowing fats to be suspended within the structure of a baked good, building moisture, and the protein in egg whites builds structure. So you can imagine, with one ingredient doing so much work, its a tough act to follow.