Aaron Behnke lives in Morgantown, WV where he runs a small vegan baking company called the Venerable Bean. When he's not inventing tasty new treats, he spends time with his family in their vegetable garden or with his friends riding bikes.

I really do not remember exactly when it was that my sweet tooth became the monster it is. I would guess it was sometime between 1996-1998. I am terrible when it comes to remembering dates. These were the beginning years of my being vegan and it wasn’t easy to find vegan desserts. Actually it was nearly impossible unless I wanted tasteless packaged cookies that were accidentally vegan. If I did find a good vegan dessert I had no problem devouring it and bringing more with me for later. The sweet tooth was probably always there but easy to please. Once it became more difficult to please I was always looking for more. I won’t lie; I still get excited to find vegan desserts.

I’m pretty sure it is The Chicago Diner that’s responsible for my love of cake.  They have an unbelievable cake selection that is entirely vegan. Their cakes made me realize that vegan cakes can be delicious. I have had quite a few vegan cakes that were barely edible. I have also made endless disasters along the way while trying to master the art of vegan baking. For a lot of years I have been learning through trial and error. I am still learning and had no idea of the chemistry involved. I was just following recipes and adjusting them after poor results. Most of the time it would just end up being another poor result. I wasn’t baking all that often but just when I was craving something sweet. I actually started to get good results when I started writing down the changes I was making. I don’t know why it took me so long to do this. It was really important for me to be able to see what I had changed and notice what difference it was making. Taking notes in the cookbooks I had was a turning point for my vegan baking. These notes made me start understanding what the ingredients were doing in the recipes. I was still baking some bad desserts but this was when I started baking more good than bad desserts.

It’s years later since my first attempts at vegan baking.  I now own and operate The Venerable Bean Bakery. It’s a small wholesale/special order vegan bakery located in Morgantown, West Virginia. A few months after starting the bakery I had a request for gluten-free cupcakes. I knew absolutely nothing about baking gluten-free but told them that I could do it. I was a little nervous but I started looking for recipes and was shocked at the ingredients. White rice flour, garbanzo bean flour, quinoa flour and almond flour. None of these seemed like flour or sounded even close to edible. My first test batch was not good. I was surprised that it was pretty close to being edible and that these flours might not be as bad as I expected. After a few more test batches with heavily topped vanilla buttercream, they tasted decent. The customer was happy and I learned more about gluten-free baking. There are so many gluten-free flours available that I can’t even name them all. I’ve tried quite a few and have taken notes with each one. I regularly bake gluten-free cakes now that are delicious instead of just decent and I’m proud of that. I also bake gluten-free brownies and cookies. Each of these has taken endless mistakes to get to a good final product. The only way I can learn is through trial and error while taking notes along the way.