Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - Grateful, Sweet, and Totally Vegan Holiday Desserts
Fran Costigan - Grateful, Sweet, and Totally Vegan Holiday Desserts
This event was on
Tuesday, November 04, 2025 at 1:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Fran Costigan, Rouxbe Director of Vegan Pastry for a discussion of how to make holiday desserts delicious and easy. Fran will offer suggestions for Thanksgiving desserts th… Read More.
Question:
I want to start learning how to bake. I can bake cookies without burning them - for the most part. Can you please recommend a place to start - and some baby steps to follow?
— Michael Baun
Answer:
Well, Michael, congratulations on mostly not burning your cookies. That has everything to do with the proper, uh, you know, cookie batter and recipe, A good heavy cooking sheet. I like to line my cookie sheets with parchment paper and using an oven thermometer in your oven. This is very, very important everybody, this is super important. And when your oven dings, ignore it because honestly, for an oven to preheat properly, it can take 40 minutes for the whole oven to preheat correctly. You want to bake your cookies on the center rack, not on the top and not on the bottom. You bake your pies on the bottom because you wanna get that bottom heat to set the pie dough quickly. So I would say, Michael, that really the best way to learn to bake is to enroll for the Essential Vegan Desserts course. It is, we have, it's, it's a wonderful course that is self, you know, you go at your own pace and it's very precise in so far as with all Rouxbe courses, we do talk about techniques. So I would, if you have any questions about the course, then give me, you know, send an email to me a fran@Rouxbe.com. But if you wanna learn to bake, I don't think there's a better place.