Vegan baking comes with two obstacles: replicating the varied effects of egg and butter. Sometimes, I can totally pull it off. This time, I could not.
Butter is hard to recreate because it is a solid in room temperature but melts at a low temperature. Say, the temperature in your mouth for instance. This is why buttercream is so delicious. It literally melts in your mouth. The same goes for caramel — it is a thick gooey sauce in room temperature and then dissolves easily over your tongue. Yum.
My past experiments using a variety of butter substitutes in buttercream recipes hasn’t turned out. Mostly because the butter substitute refuses to stay a solid in room temperature. It begins to dissolve as soon as I take it out of the refrigerator, making for some sad droopy cakes and cupcakes.
This latest experiment was trying to make a vegan salted caramel. (I used Smitten Kitchen’s awesome Salted Caramel recipe for this, with Earth Balance Soy Free Spread in lieu of butter.)
Since my problem with vegan buttercream is that all my fake butters melts at room temperature, I didn’t think I’d have much of a problem with making caramel.
I WAS SO WRONG.
The substance above certainly looks the part, doesn’t it? It even moves and stretches like caramel.
The problem is when you put it in your mouth. It actually solidifies. If you’ve been following, this is the exact opposite thing that’s supposed to happen. Yes, it goes from a liquidy caramel to a hard chewy rock when you eat it.
I have no idea why. It’s inedible.
