Pastry Chefs Name Vegan Desserts Top Trend for 2018

A recent feature in media outlet National Restaurant News highlighted the top dessert trends of 2018—wherein several pastry chefs named vegan desserts as a rising trend for the coming year. “I’m not 100-percent sure about the upcoming dessert menu just yet,” Washington DC-based upscale bistro DBGB executive pastry chef Kelsey Burack said, “but I do see a tropical passion fruit sorbet and coconut ice cream sundae with a fluffy whipped coconut cream on top.” Angela Garbacz, pastry chef at Nebraska-based Goldenrod Pastries, also foresees developing more vegan dessert recipes in the coming year. “I see a shift from using a lot of gums, stabilizers, and substitutes to using more whole ingredients,” Garbacz said. “For example, instead of using egg replacers in vegan recipes, we are trying to make recipes that just work well without eggs.” The pastry chefs’ predictions are consistent with those made by market research companies such as Baum + Whiteman, which predicted plant-based foods would be a “mega-trend” in its “Food & Beverage Forecast” report published in October.