Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - Refreshing Fruit Desserts
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Fran Costigan - Refreshing Fruit Desserts
This event was on
Tuesday, July 16, 2024 at 1:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Fran Costigan, Rouxbe Director of Vegan Pastry, for an enticing, interactive presentation in which she will explore the vibrant world of summer fruit desserts! From juicy b… Read More.
Question:
![Guilherme S](/assets/users/default_thumbnail-c14152f0fe89cae1cce32e15cdc92f426d801796f87b61f4bb21b89f4b1704ab.jpg)
Do you have any suggestions for ingredients and methods to create a rich and creamy vegan dulce de leche?
— Guilherme Schuch
Answer:
Well, yes I do. Yes I do. So dolce de leche is sweet and thick cream that's made with dairy, milk or cream you would want to cook down, reduce, in other words, fofa, coconut milk and perhaps even some coconut cream from another can save the liquid. Or coconut cream is saved with typically it's brown sugar and you can now get organic brown sugar. I'm gonna tell you about that. I mean, I'm putting a pin in that you didn't ask, but I'm gonna tell you anyway and just cook it down and that should be fine. And really there are challenges. You know, when I left the traditional pastry world, I was trained as a pastry chef professionally to create good tasting, reliable vegan desserts I had to do there. There wasn't the, there weren't, the availability wasn't there for the ingredients that we had today. I had rice milk and soy milk. That was it. That was it. Uh, so there is a lot that we have learned over time and again, that is a reason for essential vegan desserts is to learn how to make these replacements. You don't really have to go out and buy ingredients that are odd, odd or difficult to find. I use agar, which is a replacement for gelatin. I don't just use it to make gelatin, I use it to add some body to things and so on. But guim, you should be able to make your rich cream meat, dsce de leche with coconut milk, coconut cream. And if you don't wanna use organic brown sugar coconut, I would use coconut sugar or pinch of salt. So what I wanted to say about brown sugar is most sugar cane, you know, sugar cane is this really tall cane and it's crushed. And then there's liquid and it's evaporate. The liquid is evaporated and molasses is a byproduct of sugar cane manufacturer, sugar manufacturing. And unless the sugar cane has been grown organically, you've got a chemical soup in that molasses. So you wanna look for real brown sugar. Most brown sugar is cane sugar. The molasses that's inherent in the cane naturally has been taken out and put back in sometimes just sprayed on.
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