Usha Singh

I enjoy baking, however it is quite a challenge baking without eggs—yes there are a number of recipes for eggless cakes, biscuits, muffins and etc—but let me assure you it still is a challenge-especially when you want a light and airy sponge or chocolate cake.

For best results when baking a cake—you need eggs, however when someone like me and many others come along, you have to think & think again how can I bake/make a cake without eggs. Eggless cakes and etc are becoming popular because of people being vegetarian, vegan, or even because of severe allergies to eggs.

For cakes, cookies, muffins or puddings you need the following building blocks – flour, sugar, fat and eggs, and then you can add the fixtures and fittings as per your taste/choice.

When baking without eggs – we need to first and foremost understand the job description of ‘building block EGG’.

• Eggs provide required structure (eggs contain a protein that when exposed to heat gives food structure and why it is possible to have cake-like consistency in traditional flourless cakes-the eggs provide most of the structure in the absence of flour and actually work just like flour);
• Eggs act as a foaming agent (not only are they good at strengthening-but they also trap air bubbles and why egg foams work so well at leavening cakes)
• Eggs are excellent emulsifiers (used to mix oil and water-allows for fats to be more easily dispersed in food and water to be held longer-leading to softer textures and supple cakes

Well there is no one ‘building block’ that can replicate all of the properties of an egg, and therefore when making a substitution, careful thought needs to be given as to what needs to be accomplished in the specific food item

There are a number of items that can be used to replace eggs:-

• Grated bananas
• Apple puree
• Egg Replacement Powder
• Vinegar
• Vinegar + custard powder
• Buttermilk
• Flax Seed Meal —  and this tends to be one of the most versatile replacements as well as being a healthy alternative to other replacements because of its excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids and protein content

Over the years I have developed a few eggless cake recipes that I am happy/satisfied with, and to these standard recipes I have made further changes in the form of flavours and textures – I do enjoy cakes and therefore my continuous efforts to bake tasty eggless cakes. This is a recipe that I recently developed and I am happy to say “I enjoyed the cake” I can assure you my sons don’t agree with me, and they think I am out of my mind to continue trying baking cakes without eggs—nevertheless I have not given up hope of finding or creating an eggless light and airy sponge cake—hopefully it will come sooner rather than later. For me the texture of this cake is quite like that of a Madeira cake flavoured with lemon and coconut.

Lemon & Coconut Cake

80ml melted butter

250ml full cream milk or coconut milk

100ml water

5 vanilla extract or essence

5ml vinegar

30ml lemon juice

350ml cake flour

2.5ml salt

3ml baking powder

2.5ml bicarbonate soda

200ml castor sugar

30ml grated lemon rind

 Method

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees and grease baking pan of your choice ( I used a 20cm ring pan-makes 2 cakes)
2. Melt butter and allow to cool to room temperature
3. Put the milk or coconut milk and water into a small dish and mix in the extract and then add the vinegar and lemon juice and allow mixture to curdle slightly
4. Sift flour, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate soda into a large mixing bowl and then stir in the sugar and lemon rind ensuring to mix thoroughly
5. Pour the milk mixture into the melted butter and using a whisk mix thoroughly
6. Gently pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, while continuing to mix the batter with a spatula
7. Do not over beat/mix -just use folding in method to ensure that all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated and there are no lumps
8. Pour into the baking pans and bake cake for 25minutes or until a skewer/toothpick inserted comes out clean
9. You can use a cream cheese icing and spread over the cake and then sprinkle toasted desiccated coconut over the top
10. You could also just dust some icing sugar over the top and sprinkle some grated lemon rind over

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