Christmas Plum Pudding Egg/Butter Alternative

johnbon1963

Hey guys,

Im making a vegan plum pudding for christmas and was wondering if any1 has made one before and what their suggestions would be as this will be my first one!

The recipe i have chosen is from the Odlums website, as my mother makes a non-vegan/vegaterian one for their website each year.

The Ingredients are as follows:

75g/3oz Odlums Self Raising Flour
175g/6oz Shamrock Light Brown Sugar
175g/6oz Margarine -
3 Eggs (lightly beaten) -
1 teaspoon Mixed Spice
500g packet Shamrock Luxury Fruit Mix
1 Apple (grated)
100g packet Shamrock Ground Almonds
175g/6oz Breadcrumbs
1 bottle Stout (1/2 pint)

So Instead of using Margarine would dairy free sunflower work, and instead of eggs, would bananna be a good alternative?

Thanks inadvance

Tar.Aldarion

There are various soya butters, sunflower butters etc available that would do. Try anywhere from tesco to healthfood shops. As for eggs, there is a product called No Egg available in healthfood shops which serves the purpose of eggs. It's a powder that you just add water to.

DonnieScribbles

This is my margarine of choice for baking



It's cheap enough too, you can get it for between 99c and €1.50 in Tesco, depending on which one you go to.

You might get away with bananas. They do leave a very strong flavour though and I'm not sure how that'll work with the stout!

You could try using applesauce, but that will make the pudding kind of cake-y, but it depends on what you're after I suppose.

Ground flax seeds are good egg replacers too but they're better for biscuits and cookies, for chewiness...

Maybe you could chance your arm just leaving out the eggs without subbing anything in? Plum puddings are generally dense enough, if I remember correctly. A quick google yielded this recipe (along with this thread too :P) and it doesn't have any egg replacement in it. Could be worth a try.

Good luck with the baking, I'd be curious to hear how it works out!

NorthDub

i am not a vegan but have family members who are and I have used that soya margarine when baking for them and it worked grand, but one thing that struck me from the recipe I dont think that stout is vegan

Absurdum

Guinness Extra Stout is vegan

Thank you for taking time to contact Guinness. We appreciate hearing from our consumers because your feedback is important.

In reference to your inquiry, isinglass, a fish product, is used during the clarification process as a magnet to get rid of excess yeast in Guinness Draught. To the strict Vegan, this would be an animal product and unsuitable. However, the same process is not used to produce Guinness extra stout, and this product is considered to be vegan. I hope this helps. Once again, thank you for contacting us.

Sincerely
Scott Alcorn
Guinness Consumer Representative

Breezer

Absurdum wrote: »

Guinness Extra Stout is vegan

THANK YOU so much! I was looking up stouts the other day, for this very reason, and the only vegan ones I could find were some weird brands I'd never heard of. Cheers, you've made my Christmas

Absurdum

if you can find it, Carlow Brewing Company produce a nice stout that is vegan (all their beers are)

link - from 1999, I have just emailed to check that it's still ok

fillefatale

On the topic of this... I'm making an Xmas cake on Saturday. But the recipe calls for lard (as well as butter) - what would be a good substitute, just more butter? (I use pure).

DonnieScribbles

As lard is a hard fat you may need something similar. Would coconut oil suit? The flavour isn't too pronounced so it might be fine in a Christmas Cake. Or maybe try vegetarian suet? I've never used it in anything, but maybe it'd work.

fillefatale

DonnieScribbles wrote: »

As lard is a hard fat you may need something similar. Would coconut oil suit? The flavour isn't too pronounced so it might be fine in a Christmas Cake. Or maybe try vegetarian suet? I've never used it in anything, but maybe it'd work.

I did see vegetarian suet in Waitrose today so might give that go, or use another recipe. Thank you!

anothernight

You could use vegetable shortening like Cookeen. Not exactly healthy but it'd work the same way as lard. In fact it's what's replaced lard in a lot of bakery products in the last few years.
If it doesn't need to be a very hard fat, you could get away with using coconut oil. It's much better for you as well.

johnbon1963

Hey guys,

So i used the product No Egg and Soya butter in the plum pudding, whilst baking it last week. My mom made some non-vegan puddings also around the same time. The only issue was that when i took mine out of the tin, it broke into many different pieces, while hers didnt. Maybe that could be due to not using egg, but im not too sure. I went to rewrap it last night, and there is still moisture on the bottom of it, so I currently have it drying out, and will try rewrap it tonight, altho i tasted it last night, and it tastes lovely, my mom said she noticed no difference when tasting it (to ordinary pudding)!! :rolleyes:

Breezer

Hmm, I've never tried baking a pudding, seems like it might dry it out too much. We always boil ours (as in put the bowl into a saucepan of water over the hob). I'm not sure if that'd help here though, I still haven't tried a vegan one!

Absurdum

Absurdum wrote: »

if you can find it, Carlow Brewing Company produce a nice stout that is vegan (all their beers are)

link - from 1999, I have just emailed to check that it's still ok

they never replied....

henryporter

What about using ground flax seed with water : or each egg to be replaced, blend in a blender/food processor 1 tablespoon flax seed with 3 tablespoons water until the mixture is thick and creamy.

I've made brownies using flax seed and no complaints from the recipients!


for more see: http://www.egglesscooking.com/2008/10/15/egg-replacement-event-flaxseed-meal/#axzz16T86sQsV

DonnieScribbles

HenryPorter, I've never tried using flax that way before, I've only thrown it in with the wet ingredients in cookies. Will have to try it, cheers for the info!

Also... care to share the brownie recipe? :P

The best ones I ever made had banana and cooked oat pulp in them but I can't really remember what I did, tis a shame.

henryporter

My bad - twas cocoa and hazelnut biscotti I was thinking of - note to self don't post to boards while still asleep. Anyhow I can put that recipe up if you want - just as nice as brownies

DonnieScribbles

Yeah sure post it up, I'm always eager for good baking recommendations