The egg replacer in the yellow box is not vegan. It isn't actually egg replacer. It's de-fatted eggs (small amount of whole eggs mixed with a lot of egg whites). But there are real eggs in there. What I'm thinking of is a more rare vegan product meant as an egg replacer. But I don't remember what it's called, nor do I know how well it works, since I have no problem eating (free range, vegetarian feed, organic) eggs.

Soy margarine is fine. I've cooked and baked with the Willow Run several times because of a friend of mine who is allergic to dairy, and everything turned out great. Soy milk has gotten better - the Silk plain almost tastes like regular milk, and the coffee creamer from Silk really does substitute well for half and half in recipes. But soy cheese? Feh. Yuck. Patooey. :) Give me the real stuff (rennet free and organic, please) or leave it out.

I'll see if I can find out who the woman is. All I know is she bakes the desserts for a particular restaurant that I love. Curly's Lunch if you're feeling eager enough to call them yourself. SERIOUSLY yummy cakes. You'd never, ever know they were vegan. And I'm very picky about that. Vegan cakes normally taste very dry to me. These are fantabulous.

Okay, after talking about Curly's, I ended up ordering lunch from there, and got you the info on the bakery. It's Vegan Treats. From the website, it doesn't look like she ships. But you could always call and ask. She may even have a recommendation of a bakery in Houston, if she can't help you. Her cakes are SO AMAZING. Like amazing vegan cheesecakes and chocolate cakes and carrot cakes...

(It's a good thing the Rice NYC holiday party is tonight, or I swear I would have ordered a piece of cake with my lunch...)

Thank you! I will do so. I have a link from elsewhere to vegan chocolates but something that has been "road tested" and approved appeals to me more.

I'm jealous at having food like that as a delivery option, even though the office here is in the delivery zone for Star Pizza. Have a good time at the party tonight! I'm still debating whether to go the city's holiday party. Joe is producing it, which means I'd have to go all by myself. Not so much fun but every once in a while I like to attend his events.

De-fatted eggs?!? WTF? Uh, why not just use "organic" egg whites? Whatever. :) I'm sure Whole Foods has egg replacer that's vegan. I suppose what I was trying to communicate but hadn't really articulated in my own head was that my experience with baking vegan was that substitutes generally made for poor results, mostly because baking is very much about the chemistry. You can fake a lot of things but chemistry isn't one of them. I was hoping for leads on ideas that weren't replacements but more, I suppose, grew out of looking at vegan ingredients and devising yummy treats. I'm still not articulating it well. *frustrating*

However, in the resulting wild goose chase I sent everyone on, I've gotten some MUCH BETTER ideas so I can't be too unhappy. I like the idea of making cookies, maybe arranging for some vegan truffles (not too many in case they're inedible), AND putting together a treat goodie box. I like that a lot. :)

I am *so* picky about cake. Most cakes, even non-vegan ones, are "eh." It doesn't stop me from eating them, alas, but very few measure up. msjudi took me to a place down in Lake Jackson that has the perfect chocolate cake. So, so, so good. I'm sure it isn't vegan but oh my god. Fabulous. Thank the gods it's too far for me to drive just for cake.

Actually, I had a recipe from when I was a vegan for chocolate cake that was reasonably good. It's from Ron Pickarsi's "Friendly Foods" and vegans totally loved me when I showed up to potlucks because they could have dessert. :)