How Quinn Ventura's Vegan Dessert Will Change the Way You Value Butter

Acai, blueberries, strawberries, banana, agave and soy milk make a
filling, vegan snack in Blossom Du Jour's Blue Velvet smoothie.

Quinn Ventura has got baking down to a science.

The 28-year-old is head pastry chef for Manhattan-based vegan food brand Blossom. Since 2010, she has been adapting traditional desserts for its animal-product-free menu, without compromising taste.

Ventura's bakery has been busier than ever with the opening of a fourth Blossom du Jour takeout café this summer. Luckily, she's got a few tricks up her sleeve. The key to successful vegan food is cooking substitutions and the chef has mastered the method.

“For me, [baking] has always been trial and error,” said the Greenville, N.Y. native. A chef father and baker mother inspired her interest in food. Culinary training at SUNY Schenectady gave her kitchen skills. 

She credits television show "America’s Test Kitchen" for her expertise in creating animal-free recipes that emulate butter, milk and egg-based desserts. Ventura's go-to ingredient is Earth Balance, a plant-based oil blend that she says "mimics butter."

Her own bakery experiments have found that bananas, dates and tofu can create texture and sweetness for breads and cookies. A simple baking soda and vinegar reaction will raise a cake in the oven.

The Oatmeal Harvest Cookie is buttery, chewy and 100% vegan.

“I had only ever made one vegan recipe before I started working with Blossom,” she said. 

In fact, Ventura, a vegan herself, didn’t make her first batch of cookies until she was 22! Now, she runs the Blossom kitchen, cranking out an obscene amount of baked goods each day: 300 to 400 cookies, 150 cupcakes, 32 mini pies, 36 loaves of banana bread and 180 brownies, on average.

I was impressed after one bite of a Blossom oatmeal harvest cookie and a lick of vegan “cream cheese” frosting. Ventura’s alternative baked goods have convinced me, and New York, to embrace conscious eating, and maybe rethink butter.