ADVOCATE FROM YOUR PLATE — We are putting together some vegan recipes for an Advocate From Your Plate campaign and came across something delightfully unexpected: a recipe for a vegan egg replacement to use in baking called “flax eggs”.
It is from The Iron You website run by a gentleman called Mike who describes himself as “triathlete, yogi, health enthusiast and food lover.”
Mike has put together a recipe for flax eggs that acts as a binder in vegan baking that he calls “easy peasy”. And it is. Vivian can do it.
Before we get to the recipe, here is what Mike writes about vegan baking:
Vegan baking can be intimidating. I know better. At the beginning of my healthy cooking journey I didn’t even care for vegan baking. In my mind baking involved eggs, butter, milk and cream. Considering that these ingredients are off-limits for vegans I thought: why even bother baking? If you can’t use proper ingredients just don’t bake, do something else instead.
I was mistaken all along. There’s nothing wrong with vegan baking. To the contrary, it’s awesome. To non-vegans (like myself) it represents a further option to bring different flavors, textures, and nutrients to “regular” baking.
For the most part vegan baking entails just a simple 1:1 substitution on specific ingredients. Plant milk for dairy milk and plant fat for butter. With eggs, however, it gets a bit more tricky.
If you’ve encountered vegan recipes before, you’ll know that, most of times, they call for “flax eggs”.
The majority would think that it’s some expensive product you can buy at specialty shops. It’s really not. Making flax eggs is “easy peasy”. All you need is some flax seeds and water. In a matter of minutes you’ll have vegan egg substitutes that will “act” as a binder in your recipes, just as regular eggs.
I don’t know where we have been but we have not come cross flax eggs before. He posted this recipe in 2012 so we are (very) late to the party. But that’s okay.
Flax Egg Recipe
Ingredients
Make one flax egg
1 tablespoon whole, raw flax seeds
3 tablespoons cold water
Directions
Place flax seeds in a grinder (or a blender) and process into a very fine powder.
In a small bowl add flax meal, followed by water, stirring well as you go. A fork works better than a spoon.
Refrigerate for 15 minutes, but 1 hour is best. There’s no skipping this step.
The flax eggs needs to set, get thick and sticky (something similar to egg whites).
When it reaches this gluey state the flax egg will act as a binder, just like egg whites.
See featured image top o’ page (from source).
NOTES FROM MIKE
- Make your flax eggs before everything else when vegan baking. This way, you’ll give them the time to set and they will be ready when needed.
- Also, you don’t need to make one flax egg at a time, you can make as many as necessary.
- Flax egg has a nutty flavor. This doesn’t come up in recipes that call for ingredients with strong flavors, such as chocolate, pumpkin, spices, and the like. However, in milder ones, such as sugar cookies, it will pop-up a bit.
- Finally, don’t try whipping flax egg. It just won’t happen. There’s no making vegan meringues with flax eggs.
Aquafaba
See also aquafaba (water-bean). One egg is generally replaced by three tablespoons of aquafaba. This we heard of when it was discovered. Aquafaba even has a Facebook Page. The Vegan Society has an article called “20 amazing things you can do with aquafaba.” Get the history of aquafaba and FAQ’s here. Love it!
The Iron You
There’s something for everyone over at The Iron You. Mike has dishes he calls 80% vegan like his Cauliflower Crust Grilled Cheese. To the purist Vegan there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
We are Vegan but we don’t subject anyone to such things here. Happy cooking, baking, eating and loving the planet and everyone on it!
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The Iron You
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