Recently my wife and I made dinner for a family where one of the children is allergic to eggs. They had a list of substitutions that really surprised me. We used one of those tips to make brownies without eggs.
This post won’t have a recipe. It’s reference for future posts where I’ll show some of these tips in action. I don’t have any food allergies, but I’d like to see how various substitutions work in different recipes.
- flax seed
- for every egg white, 1 tablespoon of flax seed and 3 tablespoons water
- banana
- 1 banana per 1 egg in cakes
- potato starch
- 2 tablspoons per one egg
- arrowroot powder
- 2 tablspoons per one egg
- oil / baking powder
- 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon oil, 2 teaspoons baking powder per one egg
- vinegar / baking powder
- 1 tablespoon each water and vinegar per one egg (can replace up to 3 eggs)
This is going to take some time to figure out good test recipes for each of these. If you try one and want to share the results, you’ve already done some of these, or you’ve got some other good substitutions, please let me know at the forum.
10 Comments
My mom always used 1 tbsp of cornstarch for 1 egg, but only used it if she didn’t have ENOUGH eggs; she said it wouldn’t work if you had NO eggs.
Also, I found a recipe on Tastespotting last night for brownies or cookies or something, where they used cream cheese as a substitute for eggs. Sounds good to me! I can’t find it now, but if you google egg substitute and cream cheese, it might help you in the future.
This is just what I need. I have a two year old that likes to take all my eggs and break them.
Very interesting how the substitutions try to mimic the structural/leavening/emulsifying properties of eggs. I’m glad I’m not allergic; I love eggs, but it is cool to know that I can sub if I need to.
Melissa, that’s a great point. I know there have been times I was already mixing before I noticed I was short on eggs. Using one of these to make up the difference would have been really handy.
Surviving, I have a cousin who, when he was 3 years old, opened the fridge and climbed up onto the top shelf. Then sat there and started throwing everything in it across the kitchen. Eggs, milk, jars of pickles. I spent 15 years thinking I never wanted to have kids because of him.
Jenni, that’s what I was thinking. And it looks like some of the options will be better for different recipes. The one my wife did was banana in brownies. They came out extra gooey and sticky, which was good for brownies.
This is really good to know. My mom is allergic to eggs, chicken and turkey. Needless to say we have to read labels and be very careful on what we buy. It amazes me how many things have either chicken or chicken broth in them. I could use any substitution lists.
2 Tablespoons of unsweetened applesauce equals one egg in baking. I use it all the time to make things my DD can eat. She’s 20 months old and allergic to eggs.
There are quite a few options out there for Egg Free baking mixes. We carry quite a few.
Thanks for the other suggestions. I love the by-allergy search on AllerNeeds.com, what great resource.
We use applesauce and butter, with a bit oil when absolutely necessary in our house. Applesauce and some butter is the um…well, it’s used when my sister and I want cookie dough. Thusly, that combination replaces the eggs because many years ago we had a home ec teacher who hammered a fear of salomenella into our heads. (About that point in our childhood, we tried to make cookie dough with water instead of eggs. After approximately eighteen hours of fridge/freezer…we kind of had cookie dough. We haven’t repeated that misstep since.)
I know the vegans of my acquaintance use a combination of banana or applesauce. Flax seed, as far as I know, works in most things without strange gooeyness. Banana, as you point out, is sticky; applesauce, at least when I’ve used it, leaves baked goods slightly softer than one might have otherwise intended.
Annie, have you overcome your salmonella fear? I know childhood phobias can be annoyingly persistent.