New cookbook offers a deep dive into plant-based baking

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BReD

By Ed Tatton with Natasha Tatton

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376 pages | Penguin Canada | $50

Health issues were a primary catalyst for Ed Tatton to venture down the plant-based path.

“I had a heart condition since I was very young and had multiple minor operations related to that,” Tatton says. “I had a stent fitted in my aorta when I was 26 years old … A stent is basically a small, keyhole surgery where you get a spring fitted in the aorta to help open the valve to allow for better blood flow.”

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Following the surgery, Tatton was sent home with a medication regime that started with taking four tablets each day.

“Over the course of a year, I was up to 12 tablets every day,” Tatton says. “At 26 years old, my grandfather, at the time, was 103. And I was like, ‘I don’t want to take medication for the next 75 years’ … So, it was quite worrying.”

A few years after the surgery, Tatton and his now-wife Natasha packed up their lives in their native England and moved to Whistler to experience something new. What was supposed to be a six-month stint in the town followed by a similar stay in Montreal, turned into a 10-year permanent relocation to the B.C. mountain resort.

And a whole new outlook on life.

“I started getting into yoga and living a better lifestyle. And then, just gradually, cut out dairy,” Tatton explains. “Natasha went vegan a year or so before me. We always ate a heavy vegetarian diet, so it wasn’t a difficult transition for me. But I just instantly felt better.

“And I never really looked back.”

Now 38, Tatton and his wife are the co-owners of the popular vegan café and sourdough bakery BReD in Creekside Village. Offering an array of baked goods ranging from fresh breads to cake and cookies, each and every menu item is 100 per cent plant-based.

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“For us, we’re very mission-driven,” Tatton, who began his career as a Michelin-trained chef, says. “The fact that we’re 100 per cent plant-based as a bakery is really important to us because Natasha and I are both vegan ourselves. We never wanted to open a business and profit from animal agriculture when our beliefs are so strong. And our morals.”

The bakery fills a niche in the plant-based food world, Tatton says, which is a big part of its recipe for success.

“There are two kinds of genuinely vegan options,” he explains. “There’s really good chefs that put a vegan option on the menu because there is that demand, but they’re not really invested in that item. Maybe they don’t sit down and eat it very often themselves. Or it’s thrown together and maybe there’s not a lot creativity, passion or love put into that one item.

“Then you have the other end, where you have these compassionate vegan bakers or chefs that are mainly self-taught, trained at home, that want to open a business because they’re an environmentalist. They want to do good for the animals and all of that — but their items aren’t great. They’re normally average muffins and cookies. And they don’t particularly look great, and they might not even taste great, unfortunately. But, they’re doing their best and they’re really pushing forward. And they have a good following.”

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BReD sits squarely in the middle.

“We have the best of both worlds,” Tatton says.

The Tattons are putting that passion for plant-based treats into print with the release of their first cookbook, BReD: Sourdough Loves, Small Breads, and Other Plant-Based Baking, out this month.

“The book enables us to share a lot of the recipes that we make at the bakery,” Tatton says. “And, therefore share with the world, for people who can’t come to Whistler on holiday and visit our one store, how to make these recipes at home and share them with their friends and family.”

While the book will undoubtedly tickle the Tatton’s friends and followers — Ed boasts a healthy Instagram following that totals more than 124,000 people — who are used to seeing the duo at the bakery every day, Tatton says the book was “really written for everyone.”

The cookbook, which took two years to come together, is a “dream” come true for the vegan baker.

“I’ve worked in kitchens all my life. So, opening a restaurant or some sort of food/beverage business and writing a cookbook are probably the two things that any chef or baker dreams of,” Tatton says.

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Billed as a “complete plant-based book for bakers that goes beyond just making bread,” the book offers tips and tricks for assembling and preparing plant-based baked goods of various kinds. The book also boasts gluten-free options as well as several recipes for “dips, spreads and accompaniments.”

In addition to the aforementioned recipes, the cookbook offers an entire chapter on zero-waste baking, a topic Tatton says he and his wife are very passionate about.

The writing process “forced” the Tattons to come up with new recipes in order to meet their goal of offering at least 100 delicious, plant-based baked options.

“I had 50 pretty much off the bat,” Tatton says. “It was kind of nice to put down all the classics that we had been making. When we got the book deal, we had been open for just under two years. So, we already had a good catalogue of things that we knew were popular at the bakery. Like our carrot cake, cinnamon buns, some of the breads that we make on a daily basis, cookies — things like that. But there were also a lot of items that I wanted to make. For example, a cheesecake and Chai-spiced doughnuts …

“It allowed me to open up and be as creative as I wanted to be.”

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The recipes in BReD range from simple to more in-depth, Tatton says, meaning there’s a plant-based baking option for every skill level within its pages.

“We wanted to make it more inclusive,” Tatton says. “In the sense that there are some really simple recipes in there. There’s a beautiful orange and almond cake that’s in there that is gluten-free … And that’s just made in a food processor. It’s literally like, put the wet ingredients in, blend in an orange, add the dry ingredients in, put it in a tin and put some flaked almonds on top and, in the oven.”

From there, the recipes on offer advance to intermediate and then “more advanced” options like cinnamon buns with a brioche-style dough, which Tatton says take “a couple of days to make.”

“This isn’t a book for a Michelin-starred chef. Even though I do hope that some of them do pick it up and get inspired from my recipes,” Tatton explains of the all-levels’ approach. “We wanted to create a book that was long-lasting.”

If the easy recipes prove successful for readers, Tatton hopes they then feel confident enough to start tackling the trickier ones. “And slowly work their way through the book,” Tatton says.

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As for the duo’s overarching goal for the release, it’s simple: to invite more people to consider embracing more plant-based baked goods.

“To inspire more plant-based eating,” Tatton summarizes of his hope for the book. “I think a lot of people are plant-curious. And we can’t just expect the whole world to go vegan overnight.”

Spiced Carrot and Walnut Cake

Cream Cheeze Frosting (makes enough for 2 cakes)

75 g (1/4 cup) cold vegan butter

125 g (3/4 cups) vegan icing sugar

125 g (1/2 cup) vegan cream cheese

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter on medium-high speed until soft, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the icing sugar and continue beating on medium-high speed until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the cream cheese and beat on medium-high speed, gradually increasing the speed to high until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape the frosting into an airtight container and chill in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours.

Sponge

250 g (2 1/2 cups) chopped walnuts

35 g (3 1/2 tbsp) ground flaxseed

310 g (1 1/4 cups + 1 tbsp) unsweetened oat milk

100 g (1/4 cup + 3 tbsp) organic canola oil

135 g (2/3 cup) fine raw cane sugar

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10 g (2 tsp) pure vanilla extract

10 g (2 tsp) apple cider vinegar

165 g (11/3 cups) all-purpose flour

75 g (1/2 cup) whole wheat flour

7 g (1 1/2 tsp) baking powder

7 g (1 tsp) baking soda

3 g (a pinch) fine sea salt

5 g (1 tsp) ground cinnamon

5 g (1 tsp) ground ginger

3 g (a pinch) ground nutmeg

250 g (2 3/4 cups) grated unpeeled carrots (grated on the large holes of a box grater)

Topping

Zest of 1 lemon (using a microplane)

Chef’s note: Toasting the walnuts first adds a deep flavour throughout the cake. We use beautiful local carrots from Helmer’s Organic Farm in Pemberton, as their sweet and fruity flavour is incredible. I highly recommend making this cake when you can find local carrots, as it will take your cake to the next level. Have you noticed your walnuts turning a little black inside the baked cake? Try lightly coating them in a small amount of flour, then shaking in a strainer to remove the excess flour before mixing through the batter. The vinegar and baking soda can cause a reaction that discolours the nuts. The flour acts as a barrier to prevent blackening.

Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C). Lightly coat a 9×5×3-inch (23×12×8-cm) loaf pan with a neutral vegetable or sunflower oil spray and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.

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Spread the walnuts on a small baking sheet and lightly toast in the oven until golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Let cool.

To make your flax egg, whisk together the flaxseed and oat milk in the bowl of a stand mixer until a smooth paste forms. If there are any lumps, push a small rubber spatula against the side of the bowl to break them up. Let sit for 10 minutes to bloom and thicken.

To the flax egg, add the canola oil, cane sugar, vanilla and apple cider vinegar. Mix on medium speed with the paddle for 1 to 2 minutes to combine.

In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on medium-low speed until just incorporated, 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the grated carrots and 150g (1 1/2 cups) of the toasted walnuts (reserve the remaining walnuts for decorating). Lightly mix on low speed for 1 minute. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Using a rubber spatula, stir the batter from the bottom to check that everything is fully mixed together.

Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 to 20 minutes. Turn it out onto a cooling rack, turn right side up and let cool completely, at least 60 minutes, before frosting.

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Frost the cake

Spoon on the chilled frosting and use a small offset spatula to spread it over the top of the cake, gently swirling and decorating with as much of the frosting as you like. Sprinkle the lemon zest over the cake and finish with a generous scattering of the reserved toasted walnuts.

As this cake is oil-based, it’s very moist and can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. 

Makes one 9×5×3-inch (23×12×8-cm) cake, serves 7 to 8.

Excerpted from BReD, by Edward Tatton and Natasha Tatton. Copyright © 2023 Edward Tatton and Natasha Tatton. Photography by Janis Nicolay. Published by Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Ltd. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Aharris@postmedia.com

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