What is a vegan substitute for eggs? 8 brilliant baking alternatives

If you’ve been scratching your head, trying to come up with a vegan substitute for eggs, you’re not alone.

After lockdown turned everyone into Mary Berry, the strain on baking supplies has become more pronounced than ever. Finding alternatives is now a necessity.

Fortunately, the Twisted Team are here to help.

There are loads of brilliant baking hacks if your supplies are running a little low (Credit: Pixabay)

So, about that vegan substitute for eggs

To help your home baking become a little more flexible, we’ve pulled together a few of our favourite useful baking substitutes.

READ MORE: How to live a plant-based lifestyle

Whether you’re a few eggs short of a dozen, or finding that plain flour just can’t cut it by itself, this latest Twisted Guide will help you out. 

1. Plain Flour

Plain flour is the bedrock of baking. It is a workmanlike jack-of-all-trades in the kitchen – hardly a specialist, but still essential. For this reason, recipes calling for plain flour can often be easily adapted, depending on what it is you’re cooking.

“Cake flour”, for instance, is ideal if you’re creating something designed to have a delicately crumbly texture, while “bread flour” is ideal for gluten-rich doughs.

Different flours can perform different roles (Credit: Pixabay)

2. Self-raising flour

Another member of the flour family that has become increasingly difficult to source, self-raising flour is already something of a baking hack.

However, even if you can’t find it in the shops, it’s still seriously easy to make it yourself. Simply add half a teaspoon of baking powder and half a teaspoon of baking soda to every 150g of plain flour and mix thoroughly before use. 

You can easily make self-raising flour yourself – Credit: Pixabay

3. Baking soda 

For anyone who has ever wondered what exactly is the difference between baking soda and powder, the answer is not all that much. In most situations, you can in fact use baking powder instead of soda, so long as you adjust the measurements.

A general rule of thumb is that you should use three times the amount of powder to baking soda, though it’s also important to note that powder often contains a pinch of salt, so you may need to adjust quantities elsewhere in your recipe.

Baking soda can be used as a baking powder substitute (Credit: Pexels)

4. Baking powder

Similarly, if you have stocked up on an excessive amount of baking soda but forgot to grab some powder, there is a useful workaround. A popular substitute is the slightly deceptively named “cream of tartar”, which is not, in fact, a delicious fish and chip condiment, but a powdery residue left behind after the fermentation of grapes.

READ MORE: Vegetarian fast food demand is on the rise – and companies need to listen

Even if it doesn’t sound especially appetising, “tartaric acid”, as it is more scientifically known, will definitely do a job in the kitchen. 

Credit: Pixabay

5. Eggs

Even before we all entered into self-enforced isolation, a growing baking trend had been established away from animal products. If you’re in a plant-based house, finding an alternative to eggs can be tricky.

READ MORE: Meet the Made in Chelsea star and former YouTuber trying to create a ‘vegan McDonald’s’

Fortunately, there are several simple solutions. Vegan bakers have come up with numerous nifty workarounds, such as substituting around 60ml of carbonated water for every large egg, or mixing together water, baking powder and vegetable oil. 

Check out our incredible Bailey’s Birthday Cake recipe, using a vegan substitute for eggs:

6. Egg whites

Many more refined recipes may call for the delicate garnish of a meringue, or perhaps a lightly aerated chocolate mousse. If you have a hankering for pavlova, but don’t have any eggs to hand, an easy alternative is the magical, if admittedly unappetising, aquafaba.

The water found in a can of chickpeas, aquafaba can be whipped and whisked just like egg whites, allowing you to make intricate, animal-free desserts with ease.

There are lots of vegan substitutes for eggs – Credit: Pixabay

7. Powdered sugar

There are few things more irritating than perfectly baking a light and fluffy Victoria sponge, only to find that you haven’t got any icing sugar for decorating. Even though this situation might seem like a disaster, there is a solution.

Simply take a food processor and blend 128g of ordinary granulated or caster sugar with a teaspoon of cornstarch, and wait until it becomes a fine powder. Mix with a splash of water, and get decorating. 

You can easily make an alternative to icing sugar (Credit: Pexels)

8. Buttermilk

Buttermilk is brilliant for adding a flavourful element to your cooking, but it can be tricky to find. Despite its grandiose name, buttermilk is actually nothing more than the addition of lemon juice to ordinary milk for a sour kick.

READ MORE: 7 of the weirdest vegetarian foods found anywhere on Earth

Simply add a tablespoon of lemon juice or another acid to every 250mls of milk, leave for a few minutes at room temperature and use. 

Credit: Pixabay

Especially if you are an inexperienced baker, substituting anything can seem like a serious risk. Fortunately for everyone, the situation isn’t nearly as scary as it seems.