5 vegan desserts to try when you’re bored of banana bread

But you can have too much of a good thing. That’s why we’ve come up with a list of our top easy vegan desserts you can try once your fruit bowl is looking a little empty.

Vegan brownies

When it comes to vegan desserts, vegan brownies are often the first thing to appear on the menu. For good reason. They’re easy to veganise, simple to prepare, and hard to get wrong.

The key to a really good brownie is actually the quality of the chocolate that you use. So leave the cooking chocolate in the cupboard and opt for one with higher cocoa content.

Once you’ve found a recipe that you like, all that’s left to do is to get your baking times right to achieve that holy grail of slightly crispy exterior with a gooey, melting middle.

Top tip – if you’re constantly having trouble with your bakes drying out too much, think about investing in an oven thermometer – our ovens can often be a different temperature inside to the one you’ve selected on the dial, so if you know what you’re dealing with, you can adjust accordingly.

• Vegan almond butter brownies
• Raw vegan raspberry brownies
• Quick & easy vegan brownies

• 9 vegan desserts from Tesco you don’t want to miss
• 30 indulgent vegan dessert recipes
• The ultimate vegan and gluten-free baking guide

Aquafaba chocolate mousse

Ah aquafaba. That magic ingredient that allows you to create delicious vegan desserts from the liquid leftover from your can of chickpeas.

Seriously, if you haven’t tried it before, chickpea water whips up even better than egg whites to make vegan meringues, macarons, and light as air mousse!

We’ll admit that if you don’t add anything to it, the flavour can be a little savoury, but combine it with vanilla paste or chocolate and you’re onto a winner that’s cheap, quick, and probably won’t even require you to go to the shops to pick up any ingredients.

Try this amazing recipe for yourself, but in the unlikely eventuality that you haven’t got a tin of chickpeas on the go, we’ve included recipes for tofu mousse and avocado mousse too. You’ve got no excuse not to try it now.

• Vegan aquafaba chocolate mousse
• Vegan mint chocolate avocado mousse
• Vegan chocolate, orange and hazelnut mousse

Vegan cheesecake

Another classic. Whether you like yours baked or raw, it’s easy to make a vegan version. Although, be warned, this can turn out to be one of the slightly pricier vegan desserts to make.

First you have to decide how you want it to taste. What type of biscuit base do you want? Would you prefer to create a really soft, creamy texture by using vegan cream cheese for the cheesecake itself or do you like a more solid consistency that can be created by using tofu or blending up nuts such as cashews?

Now, what flavour do you want? Chocolate? New-york style vanilla? How about getting a little fruity with the season’s best berries?

So much choice. If you’re stuck for inspiration, here are a few of our favourites to get you started.

• Creamy vegan banana Biscoff cheesecake
• No-bake triple layer chocolate cheesecake
• Top 20 vegan cheesecake recipes

Vegan mug cakes

We won’t lie, baking can be messy.

Unless you’re careful, you’ll end up with cake batter all over the kitchen, and if there are children involved, definitely over them too.

And sometimes you don’t want to have to wait half an hour or more for a cake to bake. You need that sweet sugar hit right now. Which is where mug cakes come in.

A genius invention. You mix everything together in the mug, then cook it in the microwave. Cake in minutes. No mess. Seriously, why didn’t someone think of this earlier?

• Chocolate mug cake
• Easy peanut butter mug cake
• Cinnamon roll in a mug

Vegan sweets

Sometimes you don’t need a full on dessert to satisfy that sugar craving, a vegan sweet will do. And the bonus is, for this option you can make a batch in advance and they’ll last for as long as you let them.

Vegan sweets can be as healthy or as unhealthy as you like. Load them up with sugar, or make them in the style of energy balls packed with dates, which give a slow release energy boost.

The best thing about vegan sweets is that at their most basic level, you can often whip them up using a few ingredients you have at the back of the cupboard.

Melted chocolate combined with raisins, vegan marshmallows and chopped up biscuits can become rocky road balls/slices.

Dates split open with the stone taken out, filled with peanut butter and coated in melted dairy-free chocolate become the best healthy(ish) snack ever!

Want to experiment a little more? Try out some of our favourites…

• Vegan treacle toffees
• Vegan pink bounty bar
• Sugar-free almond butter chocolates
• Popcorn clusters

Feeling inspired but want to bake some delicious treats that are also sort-of good for you? Check out how to combine hidden vegetables into your bakes in Vegan Food & Living magazine – get your copy here