Morning cake

I couldn't sleep all tonight, so at 6 in the morning I started baking a chocolate cinnamon cake from a recipe in 'Eat, Drink, and be Vegan' by Dreena Burton.
Vegan baking is really easy, and totally does not have to be health food. It's just a matter of substituting a few ingredients for other equally good ingredients. Milk is easy, it can be replaced with soy milk or another milk substitute. Eggs are used in baking mostly to hold the ingredients together (so the pastry doesn't get all crumbly.) There are lots of ways to do this with vegan ingredients, including banana (1/2 a banana per egg, fantastic in things like pancakes and muffins), store-bought egg replacer (just a few starches mixed together), apple sauce, ground flax seeds, soy milk with a bit of apple-cider vinegar in it to make it curdle, or silken tofu (1/4 cup per egg, put in a blended. Makes things really moist and yummy).
Some tips:

• Like any baking, don't over-mix your flour
• Put a pan of cool water in your oven while your pastry bakes. This should help it rise and keep it moist. (I once forgot to do this for one batch of muffins, then remembered for the second batch, made of the same batter. The second was noticeably better.)
  
• When I can, I like to put prune baby food (yup) in my brownies and other chocolate things. It adds a lot of moisture and a subtle taste that works really well. (When I tell people the secret ingredient they usually get very surprised, have a few contemplative chews, and then get surprised one again when they realize they can kind of taste it, and it's delicious.)
  

I have a book called 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Buy this book. These cupcakes are as good or better than any non-vegan cupcake, I assure you. These cupcakes have converted many a skeptic and probably won me some friends (or at least one me respect for my cupcake-making prowess.)