Hello fellow deviants. I have a pie play date coming up with a friend on Friday who is excited to give it a try. My friend is vegan, but I get the sense that she would prefer to have pies made of real food as opposed to something like shaving cream in a pie tin/pie crust.
I am curious if anyone here has experimented with vegan options for making pies. My friend suggested coconut whip specifically. I am not big on whipped cream in general because it tends to smell and is also quite watery (I like my pies to be thick and enveloping - personal preference). I do enjoy cool whip-based pies if you know any vegan options that might emulate that texture.
There's a high chance you'd have to make it yourself. When I do pies, I typically use Alpro Custard, and Heavenly Whipped squirty cream. Works really well, and makes a great mess. Here's a site I found for something cool whip style though. https://www.noracooks.com/vegan-whipped-cream/
Look for Cool Whip lite (or lite whipped toppings). For the most part it's corn syrup and vegetable oils. They don't smell rancid like normal whipped cream.
Also, Reddi Whip has some other non dairy toppings made from Coconut and some other options.
But if you can't find those, or you can only find ones with trace amounts of milk and need it pure... try just whipping your own cream from soy or coconut milk. You can also use Karo oil to thicken whatever you make.
Let us know the results! Take some pictures of the resulting pies and share what you find (even if you keep yourselves private).
I'd be interested in finding out how well this worked - avoiding the lingering smell of dairy is certainly desirable. Off the shelf vegan whipped cream alternatives are crazy expensive though.
Depends how strict your friend is. My partner and I are vegan but consider one derivative ingredient in the "Less than 2%" category to be negligible. Certain varieties of Cool Whip and its store brand counterparts meet that rule (it's some protein derived from milk, I think). There are brands of coconut whipped topping, but they're too expensive for use in a session.
Other than that, cheap shelf-stable frosting is usually vegan, and any pudding mix can be made vegan by using non-dairy milk. There are also several vegan custard recipes.
I'd be interested to hear what others are using! The lower-fat cool whip varieties that don't have milk as an ingredient tend to melt quicker and the oil stings the eyes, so we're always looking for better alternatives.
vegan meringue can be name with Cream of Tartar (it's vegan) and Xanthan Gum.
There is some debate around Cream of Tartar, because, it's derived from a biproduct of wine making. Some wines are made using animal biproduct, so YMMV.
Xanthan Gum is derived from bacteria.
Mix them with water to make a meringue, which is just a foam. Standard meringue uses egg whites, but the CoT replaces that. And XG gives it staying power. Seriously, you can make it days ahead of time and it will lose only a fraction of volume.
You'll have to play around with the specific recipe.
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