Erin McKenna - BabyCakes: Vegan,

i am not a baker by training, but I am without a doubt a competition-level snacker. When I was diagnosed with wheat and dairy allergies in 2004, though, I was forced to face an uncertain future of curtailed nibbling. Braced for the worst, I scoured upscale health-food markets for snacks that met my finicky standards and found that allergy-conscious shoppers faced a wasteland of uninspired products made from baffling, inaccessible ingredients. It seemed a real possibility that my days of midday indulgences and nightly sweets were all behind me, a thought more frightening than photographs of my eighth-grade perm!

Yet I couldnt be alone in this. Surely there were others out there just like me, and beyond them an even larger group looking for an attractive alternative to overly sweet, overly fattening, unimaginably bad-for-you desserts. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Confined to my tiny Brooklyn apartments kitchen, I spent more than a year developing a bakerys worth of sweet and savory bits. A million recipe attempts and a thousand mental meltdowns later, I was set to open my bakery, BabyCakes NYC.

Four days prior to the bakerys opening, Time Out New York ran a story introducing us to Manhattans Lower East Side. By ten oclock the following morning, a line of customers had formed outside the bakery, not knowing that my oven had not yet been delivered. People were peeking in and tapping impatiently on the window while I hid in the back, brushing my hair nervously. One elderly woman eventually forced her way inside and subjected me to an impassioned account of walking two hours from her home on the Upper West Side only to find shed been cruelly misled. Aghast, embarrassed, and paralyzingly fragile, I quickly teared up, and soon it was she who was consoling me! Others, noticing my distress, left more peacefully, disappointed but promising to return.

Of course, we eventually did open for business, in August 2005, and have been blessed ever since with a loyal and far-reaching clientele. Ive long since lost track of the number of allergic children and parents who have made the pilgrimage from San Francisco or Austin or Honolulu to my bakery for their childs first cupcake, but its fair to say that teary-eyed exchanges between me and such parents are a weekly (and borderline embarrassing) occurrence. Theres also no way to quantify how many people without food constraints have lent me their support and become regular customersbased purely on the taste of our products.

I do not consider myself timid in the kitchen, and I strongly encourage you to replace any nervousness with courage. On these pages are hundreds of the baking secrets Ive learned and developed. You will most certainly find plenty to keep you entertained: brownies and cookies, muffins and teacakes, biscuits and scones, pies and cobblers the holy and glorious cupcake. Along the way Ill help you navigate the potholes and pitfalls of alternative baking, providing you with tips and guidelines that ensure success. Ive tried to be specific, and in most cases it is important that you follow my instructions carefully. Ultimately, though, I hope youll feel empowered to take control of a fresh list of ingredientsthat rather than the pantrys subjecting you to its will, you dictate your own exciting outcomes.