Why vegan?

My journey for tasty vegan desserts began, not with an attack of conscience, but an allergy diagnosis. Two years ago, I sat in my doctor's office sipping one of those luscious, dairy laden iced coffee drinks. The doctor strode in and, with a smile said, "You might not want to finish that". I am allergic to casein, the protein which composes all that is dairy and delicious. I went home and wept. I am a 34 year old mom of two little ones, with a passion for baking and a fetish for gourmet cheeses that would keep Whole Foods in business. I have a fairly severe allergy to eggs but had managed to tweak my recipes to exclude them. Subtracting milk products from the equation, led to an entirely different set of problems. My hope is, that by sharing solutions as I find them, greater awareness will be created for alternative diets, be they diets of choice and conscience, or diets of necessity.