Nita Mehta's Eggless Desserts [Paperback]

People who are lacto-vegetarian -- who do eat dairy, but don't eat eggs -- can find a lot of recipes in cookbooks written by and for Indian cooks, since this diet is a lot more common among Indian people. These books are especially helpful because they include recipes for desserts that still have the cream cheese, milk, etc., but don't call for the eggs. Usually for lacto-vegetarians, the only cookbooks that try to achieve these recipes without eggs are all out vegan. Which is fine, but you don't always want to swap your dairy out for tofu if you don't have to.

For simple recipes like butter cakes and quickbreads, lacto-vegetarians can just use a traditional recipe and swap the eggs out for a little extra baking powder, some yogurt, etc., but that's not possible for the more interesting, elaborate, and indulgent desserts -- which this book covers. It has recipes with all the taste and texture of the traditional versions because the dairy is still there, like mousses, cheesecakes, and sponge cakes.

That being said, this book also seems to cater to a slightly different palette than a lot of Americans will probably relate to. Plenty of the recipes are great, but others (grape mousse?) aren't the best. The instructions also aren't as crystal clear as they could be, and it was produced on the cheap. That's awesome as far as price goes, but it does detract in terms of presentation, as the pictures are largely black and white, and probably didn't have a professional food photographer on hand to make everything look as heavenly as possible.

So it's a good book to have in your lacto-vegetarian kitchen, but it's not as great as another book that's also called Eggless Desserts, but by a different author, Tarla Dalal. But of course, if you're lacto veg and you love making dessert, there's no reason not to have both. The only catch is that since this book was written for a particular readership, the ingredients are still in metric, (I just wrote the conversions in the book as I went through it).

Also, there are some ingredients that might at first leave Americans scratching their heads -- but don't worry, none of them are scary. Occasionally a recipe calls for "curd," and this is basically a really thick yogurt. If you happen to have an Indian grocery store nearby, you can buy it there, but otherwise just pick up some Greek yogurt from the Whole Foods or Trader Joe's -- it's very thick, and if you want it to be even thicker, you can just spoon it into a paper towel, wrap it up for a few minutes and get some of the water out. It won't even stick to the paper towel.

Another such ingredient is agar agar or "China grass." This is a colorless, tasteless powdered product made from seaweed that is basically a vegetarian gelatin (it's used in some very cool recipes, more of which I thought only non-veggies could eat, since gelatin is made from animal products). This can also be found at health food stores, or at Asian Groceries. And lastly, some recipes call for "custard powder," which is a British product. You can find it in the British import section of the grocery store, but the product itself is just cornstarch with vanilla and a dash of salt -- it's basically just pudding mix, where you add your own sugar. So if you can't find custard powder, you can substitute it easily for cornstarch and maybe an extra dash of vanilla if you feel like it.