Baking without butter? Ice cream and pudding made without cream or milk? It’s not only possible, it’s delicious. It’s vegan dessert.

As veganism has become more mainstream in the past decade, and as demand for vegan food has increased, companies have developed more dairy and meat alternatives. These new food products make vegan cooking easier and quicker.

Eating vegan-style means consuming a plant-based diet with no animal products: no meat, fish, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, yogurt or honey.

“There’s a lot of really great ingredients available now. Remember how there used to be only two flours: all-purpose and whole wheat? Now, there’s rice flour, oat flour, almond, gluten-free. A lot of great companies have been working hard to make products like Earth Balance. It tastes like butter, cooks like butter. These days, I don’t see how anybody’s missing anything,” said Robin Robertson, author of more than 20 vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, and her latest, “More Quick-Fix Vegan: Simple, Delicious Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less,” Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2014.

Robertson’s Chocolate Chip-Cherry Ice Cream is made with frozen bananas and almond butter to get the familiar creamy texture. Her Date-Pecan bars are designed to be moist, chewy, delicious and healthy, with zero cholesterol. (Read on for both recipes.)

The creaminess of Robertson’s unusual Mango-Fried Rice dessert (see recipe) comes from unsweetened coconut milk and basmati rice. The sweetness comes from organic natural sugar and fruit.

“There used to be one kind of vegan milk available — soy milk. Now almond milk is everywhere. And you can make incredibly creamy sauces from ground cashew nuts. A high-speed blender with a powerful motor will change your life,” Robertson said in a phone interview from her home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. “Soak cashews for three to four hours, drain and process them in a high-speed blender, and they become so creamy it’s unbelievable. Perfect for creamy desserts. There’s even vegan cream cheese available now in stores. So vegan cheesecake really tastes like cheesecake. We’ve come a long way.”

Tofu, long a vegan staple, can be blended with other ingredients in a food processor to make a pudding-like filling. The Chocolate Silk Pie with Cashew Crust recipe from vegan cookbook author and restaurant owner Ann Gentry has a silky texture that comes from tofu, not eggs and milk. “The secret ingredient is tofu, but nobody will be able to tell,” she writes in her cookbook, “Vegan Family Meals: Real Food for Everyone.”

Baking cakes or cupcakes without using eggs sounds like a recipe for disaster, but egg substitutes, and the right amount of baking soda or baking powder guarantees results. We’ve included Gentry’s recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes with Sweet Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. That’s faux buttercream, without dairy butter or cream.

“People used to think they had to use eggs to bake, but flax seed, ground up with water, becomes viscous, and that’s a good replacement. Sometimes you can put a touch of baking powder with pureed fruit to complement whatever you’re making to equal the volume of an egg,” Robertson said. She shared her list of favorite egg replacements (see “Vegan replacements”).

Redmond’s Bliss Baking Company, at 528 S.W. Sixth St., opened last July and offers classic baked goods — all vegan — including cinnamon rolls, scones, cookies and dessert bars. Chef/owner Theresa Whitney shared her popular Peanut Butter Oat Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that uses the flax seed and water combo in place of eggs.

“In general, with pastries and baked goods, you can’t tell the difference between vegan and nonvegan. Our most popular sweet is a Fudge Crumble Bar with a shortbread crust and crumble on top. It’s vegan and gluten-free. Our Chocolate Olive Oil Sea Salt Cookie is also popular. They both win over people who might be a little skeptical of vegan food,” Whitney said.

Salads, soups and pizzas round out Bliss Baking Company’s cafe and espresso bar offerings.

“Redmond is a really small town that doesn’t have a lot of vegan or gluten-free options. People are trepidatious of the whole vegan thing, so we offer some vegetarian options, like cheese on salads and pizzas, and breakfast burritos with eggs,” Whitney said.

Bend’s Sarah Boorstein, owner of Sarah’s Raw & Vegan Cafe in the Cafe of Life (which is the chiropractic clinic of her husband, Dr. David Boorstein) sells vegan desserts along with a wide variety of vegan smoothies.

She told us her unbaked chocolate-dipped tea cookies are popular, as are her Lemon Custard Canoes (see recipe). They get their creaminess from avocado and Irish moss gel, a thickening agent made from seaweed.

Not all vegans eat raw food, but that’s Boorstein’s preference. She agrees that it’s easier to be a vegan these days, and it’s easier to experiment with vegan cooking.

“It’s becoming easier. On my lazy days, I can go and buy something to eat at the store. I try to make all of our family’s food myself, though, because it’s fresher and I know exactly what’s in it,” Boorstein said.

People become vegans for a variety of health and ethical reasons. But being vegan, or adding some vegan dishes into the meal rotation at home, doesn’t necessarily mean healthier eating all the time.

“A vegan diet is no guarantee of a good diet, unless the only goal is to avoid killing animals. Sugar-sweetened beverages, french fries and donuts can all be vegan,” wrote Mark Bittman, The New York Times opinion pages’ lead food columnist.

So vegan desserts can be high in sugar and oils or very low. You decide.

“I think this is all about being as healthy as you want to be. You’ll definitely have no cholesterol with vegan desserts, but you can have low fat, or low sugar, or no sugar, and you can go with natural sugars, like maple syrup and dates. Soak and puree them, and you have wonderful date syrup. There’s a lot of ways to get your sweetness,” Robertson said.

And, thanks to the evolution and growth of veganism, there are a lot of options in the grocery stores now, so home cooks can delve into vegan cooking and baking without the hassle of searching for exotic ingredients.

— Reporter: ahighberger@mac.com