9 Essential Tips For Baking Vegan-Friendly Pies From A Renowned Pastry Chef

The Thanksgiving holiday can be a frantic time of year — especially if you've been voluntold to cook the annual Thanksgiving meal. Not only do you have to get the turkey in the oven, whip up an award-winning crock of mashed potatoes, and time out everything to a tee so that the food will be warm when guests arrive, but you also have to accommodate for folks who have dietary restrictions. Hosting a vegan Thanksgiving, specifically, isn't as difficult of a task as it might seem. You can easily make a mushroom gravy, shop for vegan wine, and search for a protein substitute that will please both carnivores and plant-based eaters alike. But those desserts — like the pies — may be a little bit more challenging, especially if you don't have much experience with vegan baking. 

Luckily, we've done some of the hard work for you. We consulted pastry chef Ashley Drum from Jean-Georges' abcV, one of New York City's premier plant-based restaurants, for tips on baking vegan-friendly pies. And, worst case scenario, folks living in the NYC region can pick up one of her plant-based pies for takeout at one of Jean-Georges' locations leading up to the holiday.

Vegan butter is an ingredient that all plant-based bakers need to be familiar with. It's one of the closest measure-for-measure butter substitutes you're going to find that get you close to the taste and flavor of the "real thing." In other words, it won't send you scrambling for butter flavorings or extracts to try to replicate the same taste and mouthfeel as regular butter. 

Pastry chef Ashley Drum makes her own sunflower-based vegan butter for her pies, and shares that "it has a unique but subtle flavor that adapts well to [abcV's] recipes." But her second favorite option is a butter brand named Tourlami. Though, this butter is only available for wholesale purchasing, so you're better off choosing a reputable vegan butter brand instead if you want to get your hands on some for your home kitchen.

The important thing to know about working with vegan butter is that it behaves like butter in some ways and not in others. For one, you'll need to pull it out of your fridge for a little bit so it comes up to room temperature before you start baking with it. But if you're working with a low-oil vegan butter, you may find that it comes out with a stodgy crust because the consistency isn't perfect. High-oil vegan butter, as a result, is more ideal for baking pie crust with. 

Regardless of what types of pie you're making, you're likely going to have to perfect your wash. Neglecting to add a wash to your crust may mean that the pie doesn't come out beautifully shiny, or doesn't have that perfect, flaky appearance that makes it so delicious to eat and attractive to look at. Most people wash their pies with heavy cream, eggs, or some combination of the two. But the same obviously can't be said for vegan pies. 

Ashley Drum uses a mixture of vegan butter and soy milk for her pie wash, along with a sprinkle of Sugar in the Raw. The sugar won't necessarily shift the balance of your pie and make it sweeter. Rather, it will help ensure that you get that perfect caramelized sheen on the top of it. The vegan butter, which will offer a dose of fat, combined with the protein-heavy soy milk, will give you a beautiful pie that everyone at your Thanksgiving table will want a slice of. 

One of the big worries that folks have when trying to bake a vegan pie is how they're going to master the consistency of a custard-based variety. Mainly, this applies to the undisputed queen bee of Thanksgiving: pumpkin pie. Classic pumpkin pie is made with eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and other animal-based ingredients — all of which can't be consumed on a vegan diet. 

Luckily, your plant-based Thanksgiving guests won't have to miss out on a pumpkin pie. Ashley Drum recommends using agar-agar powder and kuzu starch to make the filling for one. Agar-agar can be used as a replacement for egg whites in vegan baking. Once it's activated with water, it takes on a gelatinous texture — which can mimic the proper wiggle you're looking for in a pumpkin pie. Kuzu starch is a little bit more of a niche ingredient — but it has similar properties to other thickeners like arrowroot starch or cornstarch. Both of these ingredients need to be added incrementally to your recipes and in small quantities, as you want to help your pumpkin pie filling set without turning it into pumpkin Jell-O. 

The pie is, surely, the standout dessert on Thanksgiving. But, what's a pumpkin pie without its Cool Whip? This dynamic duo has graced Thanksgiving tables for seemingly forever, so much so that serving it without an accompanying scoop may be seen as peculiar. Luckily, you can make a quick substitute for your Cool Whip for all of your vegan Thanksgiving pies, whether it's the store-bought stuff or homemade. 

Ashley Drum shares that whipped coconut cream is her favorite topping for a pie. But whipped coconut cream comes with its drawbacks. Mainly, its flavor will never be as neutral as you want it to be. If you're looking for something that's a little less tropical, take Drum's suggestion and try Violife's heavy cream. "It has a very neutral taste, and you can season with any of your favorite ingredients, such as spices, extracts, or even cocoa powder," she says. 

Drum uses powdered sugar and vanilla bean paste to add flavor to her whipped cream, but you can also flavor it depending on the type of pie you plan on making and any other ingredients, like chocolate or caramel, you plan to add to it. For example, a vegan apple pie with a caramel-infused vegan whipped cream would be a tasty way to end Thanksgiving dinner. 

If you don't eat plant-based on the regular, it may shock you to know that granulated white sugar may not be vegan. While some vegans wouldn't bat an eye at a sweet, dairy- and egg-free treat made with sugar, other folks will avoid the sugar at all costs and opt for a vegan-friendly alternative instead — like beet sugar, organic cane sugar, or some alternative sweetener. 

Ashley Drum shares that the Jean-Georges restaurants use organic sugar — which luckily tastes nearly the same as the regular sugar and has very similar properties. However, the grains may be coarser than the finely-ground granulated sugar you'd buy from the store. So, you may need to stir a little extra to ensure that all the grittiness is removed from your apple or pumpkin pie filling. 

Drum also shares that you can use maple sugar in your pie recipes to change the flavor. This sweetener is made from maple sap, so it has a similar flavor to the stuff you'd pour on your stack of waffles or pancakes. Add the granulated powder to your apple pie filling to enhance its oaky flavors; or, consider making a maple ice cream to serve atop your Thanksgiving pecan pie. 

Once you've found a pie crust formula that works well for you, it's time to start experimenting. While white flour is a great option for a pie crust, exploring different types of flours can elevate your recipe, introduce new flavors, and offer you (and your Thanksgiving guests) an unparalleled pie-eating experience. Ashley Drum shares that she likes using buckwheat and spelt flour in her pie crust. However, she notes that adding too much of these flours, which are dense, can make your crust too heavy. She recommends substituting in a small quantity of these niche flours for the all-purpose flour. That way, you'll get all of the flavor benefits of the flour without having to adjust your pie recipe entirely. 

You could also experiment with gluten-free flours to make a pie that's not only appealing to plant-based eaters, but gluten-free folks as well. Almond and coconut flour are great additions to a gluten-free tart, so it's easy to see how you could mix them with a gluten-free measure-for-measure flour, such as this highly rated King Arthur Baking Company option on Amazon, to impart a nutty flavor to your apple, pumpkin, or pecan pie. 

The spotlight is often on the baked pies on Thanksgiving. After all, you have your apple pie, your pecan pie, and your pumpkin pie — what more do you need? Well, we have to ask, where's the love for the chocolate cream pie, peanut butter pie, and cream cheese pie? If you're the kind of baker who can master a pie crust, but find yourself totally sinking when it comes to the fillings, consider these no-bake selections to be your saving grace. However, one ingredient you'll come across all too often in these recipes is cream cheese. 

Luckily, the world of vegan cream cheese brands has come very far from the claggy Tofutti of years past. Ashley Drum recommends using Violife cream cheese for no-bake pies, or wherever cream cheese is needed. "Treat it as you would regular cream cheese," she says. Another popular option is Miyoko's Creamery's organic plain vegan cream cheese. If you're whipping up a peanut butter pie, that could be as simple as tossing the cream cheese in the stand mixer with your favorite nutty spread, vanilla extract, and organic powdered sugar and pressing the "on" button. We never said Thanksgiving pie-making had to be hard.

You absolutely have to serve your apple pie with ice cream on Thanksgiving. But your container of tried-and-true Breyer's won't do for such an occasion — or if you're serving up plant-based eaters. Instead, you'll need to grab a container of vegan ice cream to serve your pie with. 

Ashley Drum recommends trusting Van Leeuwen for all of your ice cream needs. Though, these flavors are quite innovative — like brown sugar chunk, cookies and cream with a caramel swirl, and churros and fudge — which may take the focus of your dessert away from the pie at hand. You can still find plant-based ice cream brands that are serving up more basic flavors that you can pair with your pie. Pecan pie and chocolate ice cream, for example, make an excellent combination because the cocoa can cut through the richness of the sugar-sweetened nuts. Try a basic brand, like SoDelicious or Oatly, for this task. While these brands aren't out-of-this-world with mix-ins, they are still a reliable choice to elevate your vegan pie à la mode.

The harsh reality of learning to bake vegan pies, whether for special occasions like Thanksgiving or everyday desserts, is that it's going to come with a learning curve. You have to tune your senses into what you're looking for, and honestly, learn to bake more by feel than a recipe. "With vegan baking, all ingredients become a theory, and the possibilities are truly endless," says Ashley Drum. 

And like all theories, you may have to test different ingredients and try different baking temperatures and times to see what works best for the ingredients present in your pie. If you're just dipping your toes into vegan pies, try looking for a well-reviewed recipe to start, then start experimenting with different egg substitutes and compounds to find what works best for you. It will be a fun learning experience — and a tasty one at that.