Saffer - Crazy easy vegan desserts: 75 fast, simple, over-the-top treats that will rock your world!

My dessert journey began as a kid. I remember giggling with friends in the lunchroom while feasting on soft chocolate cookies sandwiched with creamy fudge frosting. At the end of the day, I would hop off the school bus and rush into my babysitters house, eager to see what cookie concoction awaited me. Desserts appeared during those best of timesplaying kickball with the neighborhood kids after school and on Saturday afternoons after grocery shopping with my mom. Dessert meant fun, playfulness, freedom. I remember dessert being the fun-filled sweet surprise in the middle and at the end of each day.

But truth be told, no one in my family ever baked. I grew up on packaged snack cakes and store-bought cookies, not even knowing what vegan meant.

So how did I become the author of a vegan dessert cookbook? Let me take a step back.

In 2009, I decided to teach myself how to bake. I went to the school of Google and YouTube and graduated by opening a create-your-own cupcake bakery in New York. Shortly thereafter, I proved my cupcake-baking skills by winning the TV competition Cupcake Wars. As lines formed out the door and around the block for my decadent cupcakes, I switched my focus to frosting and wrote my first cookbook, The Dollop Book of Frosting. It was around that time I learned that all those snack cakes I grew up loving were the cause of my lifelong stomach and digestion issues, and thus I cut gluten and dairy out of my diet. As my gut health cleared up, my new mission was also clarified: reinvent the desserts and snacks that were part of my fondest memories as gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, and all-around better.

My mission began by veganizing my first lovefrosting. So I created a line of vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO frostings, which is now carried in more than 600 retail stores nationwide. To my delight, Dollop Gourmet frosting was a hit, especially with the investors on the hit show Shark Tank!

Next, I continued with my mission of veganizing and healthifying Americas favorite sweet snacks by creating Dollop Dunkers, a line of cookie and frosting snack packs, so that dessert lovers everywhere can have a fun vegan treat anytime they please.

So, as you can see, if anyone knows desserts, its me. And if anyone needs them to be super easy to make because they have no time to make them, its totally me.

But I have a secret: I dont like typical vegan desserts. The hard-to-find ingredients Ive never heard of. The 10,000 steps it takes to create one batch of cookies. The gross smell when I open a can of coconut milk (seriously, you dont smell that?).

When I see a recipe for a dessert that calls for weird ingredients like arrowroot powder, xylitol, and raw cashews that must be soaked for five hours and then blended and hung out to dry on a warm summer day while an easy wind blows, Im thinking the recipe writer lives on a commune and has lost her mind.

First, who has time to wait for cashews to soak for five hours? Ill have eaten three cookies, a brownie, and a slice of chocolate cake by the time those nuts are ready to be made into whatever flavorless bar/cheesecake/cookie theyre supposed to be.

Second, raw cashews? Black beans? Tofu? Are we making desserts or appetizers for a Super Bowl party? Where is my chocolatey, custard-filled Boston Cream Cake () dusted with cinnamon sugar? I mean, lets get dessert back to dessert here, friends! Just because were vegan and believe in honoring life doesnt mean our desserts need to be lifeless. Whos with me?

Im not sure at what point vegan came to be equated with dull (maybe its the lifeless component?), but Im here to change that. Stat.

In the following pages, youll find all sorts of your favorite desserts reinvented as vegan and gluten-free. These desserts are easy. So easy. Very, very easy. I really cant say it enough. Theyre easy. If youre afraid of eating vegan, Im here to snap you out of your fear. By using ingredients you know and love, and by making the desserts so easy that a three-year-old can make them, Ive given you no excuse not to get into that kitchen, tie on a hot little apron, and put some fun in your day with very easy vegan desserts. Plus, these desserts are not just easy, theyre divinely delicious. From ooey-gooey to crispy-crunchy to tender and chewy, the vegan desserts Ive crafted especially for you in this book taste downright mind-blowing. Get ready to lick your fingers clean through all 128 pages of yum.

EASY TIPS AND VERY EASY TRICKS

Making vegan desserts is easier than you think, and Im here to help. My first order of business is to provide you with a list of tips, tricks, and necessary ingredient purchases to get your vegan baking adventure off the ground and on its way to intergalactic glory.

Your first questions are probably, But what about eggs? And milk? How do I replace those? Heres the breakdown.

EGGS

Eggs add structure, moisture, and stability in baking. There are a few simple substitutions for eggs in vegan baking. In this book, Ive already suggested the egg replacements to use for each recipe, but feel free to play around and choose a different one if youd like.