Vegan Practically

I love a good vegan story, and the story of Boneshaker Donuts and Coffee in Paris and the resulting cookbook, Voilà Vegan, is magnifique! Amanda Bankert is a donut-loving American living in Paris. She trained in pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu and, determined to bring American-style donuts to Paris, opened the first of her two Boneshaker locations in the 2nd arrondissement in 2016. She later opened a second location, the Boneshaker Brownie Bar in 2022. When Bankert became vegan four years after opening Boneshaker Donuts and Coffee, she began phasing out animal products. She developed plant-based alternatives not only to her donuts, but also other classics–meringue, pastry cream, cinnamon rolls, and brownies.

And her Parisian clientele didn’t even know. As she describes in the Introduction to the book, “Boneshaker became ‘secretly vegan’–the premise being that we don’t hide that we are plant-based, but we don’t advertise it either…Our activism is revealing how ordinary (yet exceptionally delicious) veganism can be.”

What’s not to love? The cookbook’s subtitle is, 85 decadent, secretly plant-based dessert from an American pâtisserie in Paris.

I got the cookbook last weekend for my birthday (thanks Mum and Dad!). I’d put in a request for it after the Publication Coach, Daphne Grey-Grant, brought it to my attention (thanks Daphne!). It’s an attractive book, with great photos and artwork, and much more than recipes. Daphne had gone above and beyond, sending me some photos from the book, including the two pages where the author lists and describes her favourite places to go in Paris for plant-based foods.

The recipes are indeed wonderfully rich and decadent. No skimping here. And that is part of where the activism the author describes lies. Perhaps after eating enough of these recipes, people will stop saying “I can’t believe it’s vegan.” Instead, they might start saying, “it’s great to learn that delicious cakes and pastries don’t need animal products!”

The book has a fun vibe and is divided into eight main sections: Dessert for Breakfast, Gateaux de Voyage, Cookies, Cakes & Pies, Desserts, Candy, Beverages, and Custards, Confiture & Pantry Staples. It also has a section on Vegan Ingredients & Equipment and, as noted, where to go in Paris.

After writing yesterday about a book I haven’t yet read, I thought I should try at least one recipe from Voilà Vegan for today’s post. After flipping through the ingredient lists and reading through the recipes, I opted to try making the chocolate fudge. I should say that this is not a recipe I would normally make. First of all, I like chocolate more than I like fudge, so I would normally just stick with the chocolate in its original form. I also rarely make recipes that have 2 1/2 cups of sugar. And I am the person who cuts the recommended amount of oil or butter in half (I didn’t yesterday). But regardless, it seemed approachable, so I went for it.

The book is not written for a first-time cook. It requires quite a bit of background knowledge and judgment. My first try at the fudge didn’t work because I didn’t bring it up all the way to 235F. It was boiling away with the temperature seeming to level off at about 225F. Baking and such is more or less chemistry. So if I had done a bit more research sooner, I would have had more confidence that the temperature would eventually rise. But I didn’t, and I thought it would burn (it didn’t), so I took it off too soon. The result, it didn’t set. A more experienced cook might have known that it can take 15-20 minutes of boiling to reach the right temperature. So a ballpark time (even just a sentence that said, “this could take 15-20 minutes” would have been a great guide). I also wasn’t sure what to make of “stir vigorously with a wooden spoon just until the mixture starts to lose a bit of gloss and thicken,” but again that might be a function of experience. It might have been more obvious if I had done it right. Here again a little rough time range would have helped me decide when hope was lost. At some point, I just stopped and poured the mixture into the prepared pan for its time in the fridge. I had concerns since the warning “It will begin to stiffen quickly, so work fast!” Didn’t seem to apply to mine, which just spread itself out into the pan like a thick liquid.

Upshot: It didn’t set in the fridge. I searched the internet for help. In the end, I dumped it all back in the saucepan and this time I knew from my research that it would take time. So I brought it up to 235F and then followed the directions for cooling and stirring and pouring. It’s not the firmest fudge you’ll ever have, but it’s a lot better than the first time. It’s in the blog post photo, and you can see that it’s a bit soft but not a total disaster. The little bits you see are pieces of slivered almonds.

As I said, this is a book for more advanced cooks. I had at first considered making the marble cake. But I don’t have a piping bag (or know how to use one), and I imagined it turning out a mess. I am good at free-styling with other kinds of recipes, but baking is mysterious to me and I lack the experience to figure out work-arounds when I don’t have exactly what is asked for (except perhaps with cookies, but even then). The marble cake does look wonderful, though. I might need to give piping a go.

Besides including recipes that require piping, my guess is that most recipes will require a special trip to the grocery store for at least some of the ingredients. I’m also not entirely sure they’re all easily available everywhere. I don’t know, for example, where to get barista-blend oat milk, which makes an appearance quite frequently. You’ll see quite a bit of aquafaba and flaxseed. And of course, vegan butter.

But I’m not going to let special trips for ingredients discourage me. The rice pudding with salted caramel sauce looks pretty awesome, and so do the oatmeal cranberry cookies, which I think I will make for Canadian Thanksgiving next weekend. Unless I want to venture into the world of piping, in which case I might try the marble cake.

Bon appétit!