Vegan Mother's Day Treats

It's somewhat common to find children busy in the kitchen on Mother's Day, scurrying to bake and cook up something for Mom. However, if Mom (or even the whole family) chooses to leave out animal products and by-products from her diet, then, obviously, traditional recipes must be altered to suit this vegan lifestyle.

I have compiled three "classic" recipes (all vegan, of course), and have included information on how to make them special for Mom.

Cupcakes

This is a great vanilla cupcake recipe. I know that, usually, cupcakes are frosted. However, these are so sweet and moist by themselves, they don't need anything else!

1 cup sugar

½ cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine

2 "eggs" made from Ener-G egg replacer brand

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1 ¾ tsp. baking powder

½ cup soymilk

-Preheat the oven to 350°F

-In a medium bowl, cream together sugar and margarine. Beat in "eggs". Stir in vanilla extract. Combine flour and baking powder and add to creamed mixture. Mix well. Stir in soymilk until batter is smooth.

- Pour into paper liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For a little extra something for Mother's Day, you can take a small heart-shaped cookie cutter, set it lightly on top of a baked cupcake and sprinkle powdered sugar into it until it has lightly coated the heart-shaped area. Now just gently lift the cookie cutter up and present it to Mom!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is my favorite recipe that I have. Just be careful, because they are extremely addicting!

10 oz. vegan chocolate chips

2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

3 "eggs" made from Ener-G egg replacer

2 tsp. vanilla extract

-Pre-heat oven to 375°F

- In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, and brown sugar. Mix in "eggs" and vanilla extract.

-In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry mixture to the large bowl and mix all ingredients together. Add in chocolate chips.

-Spoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes.

If you would like to give this a special Mother's Day look, you can wrap cookies in colored plastic wrap, tying them at the ends like candies. Then, pack them together with some cupcakes, as well as sugar cookies (next recipe) and present Mom with a Mother's Day goodie basket.

Sugar Cookies

This is a classic recipe that is great fun for younger kids, as they get to "decorate" them.

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

1 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine

1 ½ cup sugar

1 "egg" made from Ener-G egg replacer

1 tsp. vanilla extract

-Pre-heat oven to 375°F

-In a large bowl, cream together margarine and sugar.

-In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Add this dry mixture to the sugar mixture. Add "egg" and vanilla. Mix well.

-Cover bowl of dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-4 hours.

-Roll out dough over floured wax paper. Cut out shapes with your preferred cookie cutters.

-Place cookies onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned on the edges.

To decorate the cookies, you can use a Royal Icing recipe.

Royal Icing

This icing has a lemony flavor, which works well with sugar cookies.

1 "egg" made from Ener-G egg replacer

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 ½ cup powdered sugar

Food coloring

-In a small bowl, mix together "egg" and lemon juice. Sift in powdered sugar. Mix well. Add food coloring of choice.

To keep the icing from drying out, keep a damp towel over the bowl when you aren't using it.

With these recipes, you have all the information you need to put together a great vegan Mother's Day treat basket!