With more and more people choosing a vegan lifestyle, consumers are looking for delicious vegan desserts that satisfy their sugar cravings. It’s imperative that manufacturers come up with innovative solutions to meet the needs of their vegan customers. Are you searching for new ways to create a vegan-friendly product that’s both delicious and great for the planet? Here are some great vegan dessert options to widen your consumer base.
What Makes a Vegan Dessert?
Vegan food is any food that is prepared without animal products, and is also referred to as a “plant-based” lifestyle. A vegan dessert is a sweet treat that’s made without any animal products. This means no milk, butter, eggs, animal fat, gelatin, or other animal-based products. It’s more than possible to make a vegan dessert that still has the sweet goodness of the original! With cooking and product availability continuing to advance, vegan food is becoming more popular.
Vegan desserts replace cow milk with plant milk, such as almond, oat, or rice milk. Eggs can be substituted with choices such as water & flour, bananas, or even apple puree. Typically, a vegan dessert doesn’t contain cholesterol, either.
Because vegan desserts are slowly replacing animal-based products, this allows manufacturers the opportunity to experiment with more flavor options. For example, replacing eggs with bananas will add a subtle change to the flavor profile. Manufacturers or bakers can also opt to use the OSF Flavors “masking” technique. This will offset sugar which will help create reduced sugar products. Masking flavors can be used in vegan recipes to diminish the taste of plant proteins, too.
Common Vegan Dessert Recipes
It’s a common misconception that vegan desserts aren’t tasty, or worse, that they taste like cardboard! This is no longer the case. Vegan desserts can easily replicate long-time favorites. Some common vegan desserts include cupcakes, cakes, pies, chocolate, muffins, and cookies.
Try experimenting with the following vegan dessert recipes:
- No-bake vegan cookies
- Vegan chocolate pudding
- Vegan chocolate cake
- Edible egg-less cookie dough
- Chocolate mousse
- Blueberry muffins
- “Cashew-cheese” cheesecake
Try Chocolate Holiday Bark
As the holidays approach, consider trying a chocolate bark recipe, too! This can easily be made vegan, and is delicious and filled with limitless flavor-combining options.
This chocolate bark is a combination of both sweet and salty, boasting with beautifully colored ingredients. Bark can be refrigerated for up to three weeks or frozen for up to three months. The best recommendation is to store it in an upright container in one of these locations.
Before preparing this recipe, bakers and manufacturers should note the following tips and tricks!
- First, temper chocolate: This is the process of cooling and heating the chocolate to steady it for candy. This process avoids any other colors that can appear on the chocolate in storage. To temper, avoid adding water to the chocolate. Melt 2/3 between 108-115 degrees F, 1/3 to 85-86 degrees F, and bring it all to 90-91 degrees F.
- Next, consider opting for semi-sweet or 60% dark chocolate to avoid too much of a bitter taste
- Last, when preparing consider adding mix-ins to the chocolate and on top of the bark
Flavor ideas for this chocolate bark toppings include:
- Seeds
- Nuts
- Crystalized ginger
- Pretzel pieces
- Peppermint
- Any sort of chopped candy
- Sprinkles
- Crushed potato chips. Once the chocolate is made bakers can use any combination desired to make the bark!
Easy Vegan Desserts: Plant-Based Treats That Please
It doesn’t have to be a challenge to make easy vegan desserts. OSF Flavors has over 35 years of flavor experience, and can help you craft your next vegan sensation. OSF flavors are here to offer our clients a sensational flavor experience, plant-based or not. Experiment with new flavor profiles to see how else to upscale any vegan dessert. Call to request a taste today!