Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - Grunts, Slumps, Cobblers, Crisps and Sonkers

Grunts, Slumps, Cobblers, Crisps and Sonkers

Fran Costigan - Grunts, Slumps, Cobblers, Crisps and Sonkers

This event was on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 at 1:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern

Join renowned pastry chef Fran Costigan for an unforgettable live event as she unravels the delightful world of Grunts, Slumps, Cobblers, Crisps, and Sonkers. Prepare your taste buds… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

Sometimes my GF carrot cake recipe won't rise and comes out greasy. Might you have any tips for what I might be doing wrong?

— Regina Heon

Answer:

The recipe contains vegan butter, gluten-free flour, flax eggs. So for those of you, you who don't know, flax is used as a particular kind of an egg replacer. It doesn't help with the cake rising but it binds, excuse me, it's usually one tablespoon of ground flax and three tablespoons of a liquid. Almonds, almond flour, carrots, leavening, spice and vanilla. Well Regina, I can't really tell you what I think about your recipe because I haven't seen your recipe and I really would need to know the proportions or so on. But I would say if it's greasy you might wanna cut back on the amount of fat almond flour, nut flours add fat as well, which is a nice thing. They're very nice when used in combination with gluten-free flour mixes, but they will add some fat. So maybe you want to cut back on the amount of vegan butter and I think you might want to up the amount of leavening from baking powder and baking soda. I see you have leavening because your flax eggs are going to bind, they're not going to leaven. Maybe try a little apple cider vinegar too to help with the leavening. So you know Regina, and some of you also know, I'm gonna say cut your recipe in half or even by a quarter and go back to testing it.
Fran Costigan

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com