LW: How much time you have? The challenges are many. For vegan baking: I was first stumped by how to substitute eggs. They can be used as leaveners, binders, or both so I had to learn to read non vegan recipes and figure out what role the egg was playing. Once I figured that out, I had to learn which egg substitutes worked best in which recipes. For instance, ground flaxseed in soy, almond, or coconut milk may work in a brownie recipe and fail miserably in a very similar blondie recipe. Yikes! After the egg problem, came quality problems. A lot of vegan alternatives, particularly for dairy products, contain hydrogenated oils which I am strictly opposed to using. I would rather leave an item off my menu than use a fat so dangerous for the human body. It's taken some sleuthing and some serious online shopping, but I now have all the vegan alternatives I need and none of them contain hydrogenated oils! For now, my vegan hurdles are pretty much jumped (aside from that secret, un veganizeable recipe). For gluten free baking: first, a note: "gluten free" is a government awarded term for a food item that has been tested by a government agency and qualifies with 2 parts per billion or less gluten per serving. My food has not yet been tested (it's really expensive), so my options are currently termed "no gluten ingredients" for legal reasons. When I have a spare few thousand dollars, my food will be tested. Gluten free baking is tougher than conventional baking because the flour options rice, soy, corn, tapioca, potato, and quinoa do not have the elasticity of their glutenous cousins. This makes for pastries that don't rise quite as much and can be a little heavy. Mostly, it takes tinkering with flour ratios. I have a super secret ratio that works like magic for pancakes and waffles, but is not so hot for cakes and vice versa. Vegan gluten free baking is even more ridiculously difficult because non vegan gluten free recipes can rely on eggs as a binder, so the toughest part has been concocting not only flours that will work, but egg substitutes that work as well.
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