There's something about baking that feels like magic, bringing a disparate jumble of fats and grains together and turning them into a fresh, warm creation. If cooking in general is chemistry and physics, baking is nothing short of alchemy.

In "How to Cook a Wolf," M.F.K. Fisher called baking bread "a hypnotic business, like a dance from some ancient ceremony...There is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread." Whether the smell of fresh-baked cookies and the vision of hands dusted in flour are rooted in home or your favorite bakery, it is precisely the combination of smell, taste, science, and ritual that gives baking its magical qualities. Proust’s madeleines are just cookies, but the madeleines plus Aunt Léonie, plus Sunday mornings at Combray, plus dipping in the hot tea just so, and suddenly you’ve got seven volumes of flashbacks. Mexican Pan de Muerto, Bulgarian ritual bread, Chinese mooncakes, and the birthday cake that belongs now to just about everyone — baking goes hand-in-hand with ceremony. When I first recall  realizing that the time it took to bake a certain cornbread that kept me alive as an undergrad was the exact time it took to listen to Pink Floyd's The Wall twice. The soundtrack became an essential ingredient.

Perhaps this is why people abhor the idea of vegan baked goods. For devout adherents to the Western tradition of baking, butter and eggs aren’t just the mortar that holds up the building — they're the baked good's heart and soul. Butter and eggs turn an ephemeral pile of flour into a sacrament. True enough, the egg is wonderfully effective at both holding the baked good together and helping it to rise. But it is not necessary for either, as the majority of simple breads demonstrate, which usually contain no eggs at all. As for butter, anyone who has tasted a creamy pat of Beurre de Baratte cannot deny its deliciousness. But there are plenty of other fats that are just as delicious, from sesame oil to coconut cream.

Nothing tastes like butter, nothing bakes like butter. Use "the other spread" and all the work you put into a recipe will be for naught — it just won’t have the taste, texture, or look you want.

When I became vegan, I was determined to be every bit the baker I was as a vegetarian. The process was difficult, I will not lie. Whereas baking had once been two parts intuition, one part science, vegan baking was two parts science and one part weeping, yelling at my cakes, and throwing spoons across the kitchen. Yet with determination, creativity, and a bit more patience, I was soon making cakes, cookies, and bread that were just as tasty as those I used to bake with eggs and butter.

A few weeks ago, I took my husband on a grand tour to see what New York City has to offer in the way of commercially produced vegan baked goods. Though a vegetarian himself (and once vegan), he came grudgingly, unenthused by the prospect of a full day's worth of dry, monastic cupcakes and cookies that might even be healthy, Heaven forfend.

Despite my optimism, I admit the day began without much promise. At noon we entered Bonobo's, a vegetarian diner of sorts. The store smelled like kitty litter and had no bakery that I could see (though they advertise the contrary). The place had a sanitized atmosphere, despite its whimsical name. We indulged in the two sweets on offer — an organic mesquite truffle ball and a sweet sesame confection also in a ball shape. The former did taste a bit like chocolate and the latter didn't kill us. Not wanting to be rude and toss the whole mess in the trash right there, yet fearing a homeless person might mistake it for food, we clandestinely deposited our balls in a city trash bin and trudged on.

By 1 p.m., still unable to get the taste of sesame ball out of our molars, we entered the LifeThyme market. In the very back, past the long corridors of granola and wheat germ, is an extensive vegan bakery. They had so many options, from sweet to savory, we could hardly decide what to get. Keeping it traditional, as was my plan for the day, we ordered a slice of chocolate cake and a tiramisu. At the last minute, though, I grabbed the Spirulina Blueberry Tart, mostly because it was so blue. I was tricked. It tasted like turquoise, not the color but the rock, bitter and granular. The tiramisu was lemony cream atop a crumbled-up something with a swirl of, I think, Magic Shell. At least it was sweet. And then there was the chocolate cake: not so bad. It was sugary and had a nice texture, with a pleasant cocoa frosting.

The chocolate cake was a sign of better things to come. We were soon stuffing our mouths with cakes and cookies and tarts that contained nary an egg and were pretty darn tasty. The successes all shared the same basic elements: they were sweet and moist and simple, like something you'd serve at a kid's birthday party. They had conquered the greatest scientific challenge to vegan baking: how to get your baked thing to rise and hold enough moisture to avoid tasting like a doorknob. And they managed to dodge the other pitfall: associating vegan cooking with health, which sometimes takes the form of replacing sugar with juice, or chocolate with carob, or flavor with spirulina. This method was most egregiously demonstrated at a modest little bakery down in the East Village. Though well-meaning, the place felt like a Joan Baez album cover. Their chocolate cake managed the unimaginable — it had a perfectly fluffy and moist texture but also tasted like clay. They may have replaced the sugar with extra baking powder. My husband nearly broke his tooth on a biscotti.

And then, like a beacon in the night, we came across BabyCakes NYC. The first thing I noticed when I entered was a sign that advertised "Frosting Shots $1.50." Shots of frosting. I was heartened. BabyCakes claims to be refined-sugar free, wheat-free, casein-free (meaning dairy free), egg-free, vegan, organic, and kosher. A good many of their goods are gluten-free and soy-free. And everything we had was delicious. The winner was, without doubt, a flaky, salty biscuit with a delicate sweet cream and raspberry jam. Through whatever formula of science and devotion, BabyCakes alone proves that vegan baking can be delicious. "Thank all that is holy for BabyCakes NYC…" Pamela Anderson blurbed in their cookbook. I say, any place that brings out religion in Pamela Anderson has got to be something special.

At the end of the evening, the leftovers from our day's fare were foisted upon a group of spirited Hungarians, who I once saw huddled over a jar of congealed goose fat, armed with nothing but spoons. They agreed that they wouldn’t have known I was bringing them vegan fare had I not told them, and gobbled up everything. Late in the evening, we toasted each other in Hungarian fashion with vegan cupcakes. Not as wonderful as jarred goose fat on a summer day, perhaps, but a little ceremony nonetheless.

Stefany Anne Golberg is an artist, writer, musician, and professional dilettante. She's a founding member of the art collective Flux Factory and lives in New York City. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Babycakes storefront photo by sayheypatrick via Flickr (Creative Commons), Babycakes cupcakes photo by nayrb7 via Flickr (Creative Commons), Pink Floyd, The Wall photo by exquisitur via Flickr (Creative Commons), “Veg-o-matic” photograph by Eric Tucker/Getty Images, "Plate" photograph from FoodCollection/Getty Images.