Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - Open Office Hours

Open Office Hours

Fran Costigan - Open Office Hours

This event was on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Fran Costigan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to … Read More.

Recorded

Question:

I noticed that when I use vegan chia egg, my muffins or cake come out a bit dense. They still taste great to me, but I also wonder if there is a way to make them a bit lighter or "fluffier"?

— Blanca Martinez

Answer:

So for example at the American culinary Federation convention where I served, 200 plates of chocolate cake to live for ganache glazed it is safe to say that maybe 1% of the attendees were plant-based. So these are people with traditional palettes. many pastry chefs fine chefs used to a cake with a lovely interior light interior with a lovely crumb. And my intention is to serve something where you can't tell it's vegan. Unless you're being told it shouldn't be dense. Itch and B heavy it's gonna be gummy. It should be great and your question really is one of the reasons that I wanted to create this course with Rouxbe because you've got to learn foundational technique in order to make a light lovely better bass dessert and by better based I mean a cake. Or a muffin or a cupcake. Some people say a muffin is just a naked cupcake. I don't know any, you know cornbread anything now when it depends if you're Taking the oil at the fat out of a cake. As Whole Food plant-based. No oil Forks Over Knives people do that and there's nothing wrong with it, but the cake is going to be denser. Some of you already know that I made rip esselstin's wedding cakes. I made the chocolate cake that I've referenced a few times the chocolate cake to live for but I made it fat-free to accommodate the whole food plant-based esselstin family. It was denser. It wasn't heavy though. It wasn't heavy. It was just denser. It was almost fudgier. So, you know, I thought it was different. That would not necessarily be my choice of cake. I prefer a more delicate cake, but it's very good and I have certainly used it. So it isn't just about the Chia. It's about a lot of things. It's about the kind of flour that you use or flours because mixing flours is a good thing. It's about the technique that you use. Are you whisking your dry ingredients before you make your cakes and muffins. Are you using enough liquid is your plant milk or water? You know correct is the proportion correct your using enough leaveners. So that's what I would say. Yes. There's a way to make them lighter and fluffier. There's a place for both and if you want to learn more, I would recommend that you take a look at this course now
Fran Costigan

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com