Fran Costigan

Fran Costigan is the author of the book “More Great Good Dairy Free Desserts Naturally”. For more information about Fran, or if you’re interested in one of her classes, visit http://www.francostigan.com/.  Fran took some time away from the Culinary classes which she teaches to give us an interview.

How did you first get started in vegan baking?

After completing the professional program at New York Restaurant School, I was hired as pastry chef in a high-end NYC catering shop to make all the desserts and baked goods. I used loads of butter, milk, eggs, and white sugar to make my desserts, which were very popular and my work was interesting, but I didn’t feel well. I had to stop working to try to deal with my fatigue, moods swings and general malaise. During my time out, I read Dr. Annemarie Colbin’s Food & Healing and had my first ‘aha-it’s the food’ moment. I became a whole foods vegan overnight, and felt great immediately. I shunned all sweets for a short time until I was reminded, first by my son, and then others, that sweet treats are celebratory and an important part of a balanced life. Vegans do have birthdays, anniversaries, enjoy holidays, and just like cookies, pies, and pudding too.

At the time, there were few vegan baking books in print and the mostly information was just wrong: (short story: liquid sweeteners and granulated sweeteners are not interchangeable, whole wheat bread flour makes horrid cakes and carob is not chocolate). The last straw for me was when colleagues insisted there vegan pastry chef was an oxymoron and vegan desserts were not possible. Really, I couldn’t blame them for thinking this, since I found the vegan desserts available at that time awful or mediocre at best. So, I shopped for ingredients and sequestered myself in my lab––the kitchen. I learned by testing and tasting all I could about the properties of quality vegan ingredients, feeling certain that if I could link these ingredients with traditional pastry technique, I’d get what I was after; no-apology-needed, excellent desserts that just happened to be vegan. I refused to use fake ingredients or accept the verdict, ‘Well, this is good for what it is’. While I was intensely working with vegan ingredients and recipes, I enrolled in the Natural Gourmet Institute’s CTP program, and worked as a pastry chef in an almost vegan restaurant. It took a lot of testing over a long period of time, but when the successful first version of my Chocolate Cake to Live For and a few other perfect desserts worth eating were born; I knew I had cracked the code!  I had ample opportunity to hone my craft as a pastry chef at Angelica Kitchen and as a vegan pastry teacher at the Natural Gourmet Institute.

What were some reasons you had for writing your book “More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally”?

The recipes in my first book, Great Good Desserts Naturally are still relevant and even now I receive letters from happy users. I continue to make the recipes in that book myself, but I had a lot more to say and 6 years of new recipes. The recipes in my first book relied almost solely on liquid sweeteners, primarily maple syrup. I still consider maple syrup an excellent ingredient based on my criteria for choosing foods:  real, natural, unprocessed, and it’s always been used as a sweetener, but it was time to address the requests for recipes that could be made with a wider range of sweeteners, including the vegan granulated organic, fair trade cane sugars.

Also, the explosion of interest in vegan cuisine from a more diverse population including avid home bakers, as well as professionals, emphasized the need for a more complete resource for vegan desserts. I rely on being able to find accurate information and answers in my traditional baking and pastry books, but as no vegan version existed, I had to write it myself. More Great Good Dairy Free Desserts Naturally contains detailed information about ingredients that are unique to vegan cuisine, as well as how to use them. One example is agar, the sea vegetable that replaces bovine gelatin and is a foundation ingredient in vegan desserts. There are three different types of agar and the properties of each and how to use them are variable, so if you are interested, you’ll find the chart two pages of agar info in my book useful.

It is said of this book that the recipes are “vegan by design, not by taste”, what does that mean?

My recipes make scrumptious desserts that delight and satisfy every true dessert lover. In my recipes nothing is missing except the dairy, eggs, white sugar, cholesterol, and excess fat. I get letters from vegans using my book to tell me that no one ever knows the dessert they’ve made is vegan until it is revealed as such. My intention has always been to transform traditional desserts into luscious, modern and healthful vegan desserts. Non-vegan eaters have no idea that the Fudgy (high fiber) Brownie, perfect (but lower fat) Peanut Butter Cookie or the celebrated “Chocolate Layer Cake to Live For’ they just devoured was vegan.

How do you come up with the recipes that you create?

I think about the desserts I miss eating from memory, and the ones I’m seeing in restaurants and on cooking shows, the gorgeous photos of desserts in print and online magazines. People send emails to me asking for a vegan version of their favorite recipe and sometimes it’s a request from a food professional as was the case with my Vegan Organic Whole Grain Twinkie. All the recipes in my book are building blocks and adaptable so that you can design your own favorite dessert using my recipes.

My newest passion has been creating totally chocolate recipes in order to use the widely available and fantastic fair-trade organic vegan chocolates in the marketplace.

The instructions and technique are masterful and very informative, why did you want to write a cookbook like this?

Thank you. Dessert making is more precise than cooking. There are ‘rules’ to follow if you want a dessert to be excellent, and vegan desserts are no exception. My training in traditional pastry and working in both non-vegan and vegan pastry kitchens has given me a unique perspective.

With questions from professionals and home bakers and requests for consulting, the need for this type of instruction and technique was evident to me. There’s more to vegan desserts than replacing cow’s milk with a non-dairy version, the butter with margarine or eggs with boxed egg replacer. If you want to make something sensational, technique matters.

Your cookbook is not like most, in that you offer advice and tips at the beginning of each section, why did you want to include this in your book?

I’m glad you noticed this. Most people, myself included, skim the front matter where the tips usually are placed and go right to the recipes. After so many years teaching, I knew it would be most helpful to write a thorough introduction to technique and ingredients, then repeat and expand on the particular techniques at the appropriate chapter. Making successful pie dough is different from making great cakes. I did design this book to be used both a complete course in Vegan Baking and as a recipe book. This book became my blueprint for Fran Costigan’s Vegan Baking Boot Camp Intensive® which brings students from all over the U.S and across the globe, and at all different skill levels ranging from absolute beginner to business owner and French pastry chef, together to learn the art of vegan desserts.

What advice would you give to someone that is just starting to bake?

Read the recipe all the way through and make sure you understand it. Gather and prepare all your ingredients before you start. Keep at least one oven thermometer in your oven and preheat. Use quality bake ware and measuring items.

Dividing a recipe in half when you are just starting out saves time and money and do keep good notes. Use quality ingredients and have fun!!

Fran Costigan

My schedule and services, good links and photos of my classes and my desserts, and those of my students, can be found on my website: www.francostigan.com

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