Egg Replacers

Traditional bakers have been able to create a vast variety of foods over the last several hundred years of baking evolution. It’s surprising when you realize that everything from puddings to cakes to cookies vary little in the range of ingredients used. Versatile ingredients such as flour, sugar, fat and eggs make this sort of variation possible. These are the building blocks of pastry. Vegan baking is easy when all you have to worry about is manipulating flour, sugar and fat. So what are we do to do in regards to replacing the almighty egg? There is a legend that the Romans believed in chicken eggs so much, they mixed them into their concrete. To first understand what we need to replicate this building block we need to understand what an egg does in the world of baking.

I am often shocked when I read egg replacing tips written by other vegans, because chickpea flour never seems to be there. While my go-to egg replacer used to be ground flaxseeds, since discovering chickpea flour I have never looked back.

Chickpea flour is readily available in health food shops, along with Indian, Italian and French grocers. It is also known as besan, chana flour, gram flour, cici flour and garbanzo bean flour. You can even make your own out of whole, dry chickpeas if you have a grain mill or very powerful food processor.

Some of us may remember chia seeds from those ch-ch-chia pet commercials in the 80's. Well they're back! It turns out that ch-ch-chia can b-b-bind. They work similarly to flax seeds in that when ground, the mixture forms a mucilage, also known as goop, and pulls together when heated. Perfect as an egg replacer in things like vegan cakes, cookies or anywhere else you'd want to substitute an egg. Like flax seeds they also contain protein, fiber and are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids.

Just be sure to use white chia seeds. The darker varieties will be visible in your finished product. White chia seeds can be found online if they're not available at your local health food store.

Bananas work great as a vegan egg replacer due to their abundance of specific starches and sugars. Keep in mind that whatever you put bananas in will undoubtedly turn into banana-whatever-the-name-of-your-recipe-is. This can be great for things like vegan cakes, pancakes and quick breads but awkward in things where you're not going for the whole banana thing. Bananas aren't as powerful binders as Egg Replacer Powder or Flax Seed Egg Replacer but due to the large amount of sugars and pectin they contain, they're more powerful than using Yogurt as an egg replacer.

Vegan yogurt usually consists of a base of either soy, nut, rice or coconut that is fermented with lactobacillus cultures. Depending on the base and fermentation method, hydrocolloids such as tapioca starch, agar or xanthan gum may be added to increase viscosity.

Non-dairy yogurt isn't actually an egg replacer that's on par with eggs. It's about as effective as traditional dairy yogurt as an egg replacer in baking applications. This isn't much but it works great in things where significant binding power isn't needed such as vegan cakes, waffles and pancakes. It won't help you get things very dense and chewy like traditional eggs can but it's great for holding in moisture and adding flavor complexity at the same time.

Omitting the almighty egg in recipes can lead to serious baking disasters. It's rumored that the Romans put eggs in their concrete to improve its strength. Vegan Egg Replacer Powder is a very effective egg substitute that's great for replacing eggs in most vegan baking recipes where heat is involved. It's an important piece of weaponry in your vegan baking arsenal. When I ran my baking company, Enchanted Oven Baking Co, I used this egg substitute recipe extensively with my cookies to make them soft, dense and chewy.

This binding powder consists of a blend of starch, vegetable gum and a leavener. Arrowroot is used as the starch because it performs well and is one of the most tasteless starches. Baking powder is used to mimic the slight leavening properties that an egg would contribute. Guar or Xanthan gum improves emulsification of fats and oils much like an egg would. Use Egg Replacer Powder as a more affordable direct replacement for Ener-G Egg Replacer.