Ottawa teacher becomes first plant-based baker on Great Canadian Baking Show

Andrew Arcello, the first plant-based baker to compete on The Great Canadian Baking Show, seen in the kitchen with daughters Evelynne and Eleanor, went vegan in his 20s and then started experimenting with different ways he could enjoy the same sweet treats he looked forward to as a kid — only without using ingredients like eggs, butter and milk. Photo by Ashley Fraser /POSTMEDIA

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While eggs, milk and butter may be traditional baking staples in many households and recipes, what if a cake could be put together without these ingredients and taste just as, if not even more, delicious?

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It’s something Stittsville local Andrew Arcello hopes to prove is more than possible as he becomes the first-ever plant-based baker to compete in the Great Canadian Baking Show.

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For Arcello, a music and drama teacher at Elmwood School, life has revolved around food and the way it brings people together from a very young age.

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He recalls gravitating toward an old canvas suitcase his grandmother kept in the corner of her 1960s-styled basement containing hundreds of recipes clipped out of old newspapers and magazines, meticulously organized by category in manila folders.

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“Something that we would do for fun was to go sit in the basement and thumb through recipes and see what was in there,” he said. “And that really shaped how to make a meal for me.”

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Amid frequent visits to his grandmother’s house, conveniently located right next door to his childhood home, he developed an appreciation for everything that went into a meal and in the power of food in bringing people together.

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“And then I very quickly realized what I was really at the meal for was the sweet treat at the end,” he said with a chuckle.

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After going vegan in his early 20s, Arcello started experimenting with different ways he could enjoy those same sweet treats he looked forward to as a kid — only without using ingredients like eggs, butter and milk.

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Some dairy products can be easily swapped out of traditional recipes with things like plant-based butter and oat or soy milk. Others, he said, require a bit more creativity.

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“It’s really the eggs that people get stuck on, and for me as well that’s a really complicated piece,” he said. “What I’ve learned to say is, ‘Anything is an egg if you’re brave enough.'”

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The first step, he said, is taking a step back and thinking about the role each ingredient plays in a recipe. Anything from applesauce, plant-based yogurts and aquafaba — the liquid from a can of chickpeas — could play that same role.

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“What I tell people is if we stop using the term like egg, milk and butter and you start thinking about what their function is in a recipe … Is it a binder? Is it a leavener? Is it a thickener? Then, all of a sudden, there’s a whole plethora of things that could replace that.”

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Entering the Great Canadian Baking Show tent, he knew he was likely to encounter different setbacks when squaring off against his competitors. The way an egg cooks, for example, can be completely different from how aquafaba from a chickpea can cooks.