- Lately, record-high egg prices have deterred me from wanting to bake my favorite cookies.
- So, I tried testing egg substitutes in my go-to cookie recipe to see which could work.
- The flaxseed impressed me most. I'd also use commercial egg replacer, yogurt, and aquafaba again.
Recently, egg prices reached a record high as the bird flu sweeps the United States, cutting into our supply.
So, for now, I've taken eggs off of my grocery list. Although it's been easy to get creative with egg-free breakfasts, baking without them has felt daunting
Still, I know it's possible to bake without eggs considering vegans have been doing it for years.
I wanted to try it for myself, so I made my favorite chocolate chip cookies from Duff Goldman using egg alternatives. I typically half the recipe so each batch requires just one egg.
For this test, I experimented with five common substitutes for eggs: flaxseed, commercial egg replacer, applesauce, yogurt, and aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas).
I chose these because I almost always have applesauce, yogurt, and canned chickpeas on hand, and I've heard great things about using flaxseed and commercial egg replacer for baking.
Here's how the cookies fared.
The flaxseed felt pricey upfront.
I first tested my recipe with flaxseed.
I had a bit of sticker shock paying $9 for a 16-ounce bag of the stuff, but it's shelf-stable and should last a long time in my pantry since most recipes only require a small amount.
To replace one egg, I mixed a tablespoon of flaxseed with about 3 tablespoons of water. Then, I let it sit for 10 minutes to thicken and become a "flax egg."
At first, my dough seemed off.
From there, I continued to follow my cookie recipe by creaming the butter and sugars, then adding vanilla and the "flax egg."
In a separate bowl, I whisked flour, baking soda, and salt together, then added these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
Once the dough was incorporated, I mixed in chocolate chips and scooped the cookies onto a baking tray. The dough seemed dry and crumbly, which had me worried that the cookies would fall apart during or after baking.
These took longer to bake than my usual cookies.
I baked the flaxseed cookies for a total of 17 minutes. They needed more time than my usual recipe, as they seemed too underbaked on top after the 14-minute mark.
Despite my worries with the dough, the finished cookies looked golden and very similar to my usual batch.
My "flax egg" cookies tasted nutty and delicious.
After letting the cookies cool slightly, I was treated to a delicious cookie with an appealing texture.
The flaxseed added a nutty flavor to them that reminded me of browned butter. The cookies were crisp on the edges and chewy in the center.
I used a commercial egg replacer in the next batch.
The commercial egg replacer also felt a bit pricey upfront at $5.89 for a 12-ounce bag. However, it should also last a long time in the pantry as it only calls for one tablespoon to replace one egg.
Like the flaxseed, the replacer had to be mixed with a few tablespoons of water to create a thicker substance. It only needed to sit for one minute to thicken to the right consistency.
The dough seemed fine.
I followed the cookie recipe as expected, and the dough came out moist with smaller crumbs.
Once I finally incorporated all the small crumbs, the dough had the consistency of Play-Doh. It seemed similar to my dough with egg.
I watched these in the oven closely.
After about 12 minutes in the oven, the egg-replacer finally cookies fell out of their rounded, scooped shapes and looked more like what I expected.
It took another five minutes (for a total of 17) before they were golden and baked through. The resulting cookie still retained a lot of height in the oven.
The cookies made with an egg replacer had good rise and a soft center.
The bottoms of the cookies were dark golden and very crispy, and the top had some crispiness as well. The center was gooey and soft, just shy of being underbaked.
As for flavor, these tasted very close to the original recipe with egg, but I did get an extra hint of starch that had a very slight floury taste. That could be because the egg replacer contains potato starch, baking soda, tapioca flour, and psyllium husk.
I don't think this flavor would be noticeable to someone who wasn't closely examining the cookie, though.
Applesauce could bind and emulsify in the recipe.
According to Business Insider's egg-replacement chart, applesauce would be helpful for binding the dough and thickening the cookies, but it wouldn't be too great for leavening.
By comparison, flaxseed was good for binding only, while egg replacer was ideal for binding, emulsifying, and leavening.
Of the alternatives I tried, applesauce felt especially accessible — especially since I typically keep it on hand anyway, and it has many uses (including being eaten on its own).
For this experiment, I bought the cheapest option at my local grocery store: six small cups of applesauce for $3. I used 1/4 cup of applesauce (nearly all of one single-serving cup) to replace one egg.
My dough was sticky and produced fewer cookies than usual.
My dough certainly smelled good, but the applesauce made it dense and sticky.
The cookie scoop I used packed the dense dough in so much that this batch made only 11 cookies instead of 12.
The applesauce cookies looked thick and pale.
These cookies took about 19 minutes to bake, as they were staying too soft on top and looked pale for longer than expected.
After they'd cooled, they looked very thick but much lighter in color than my other batches.
The applesauce made for some very chewy cookies.
These had a good flavor and tasted like standard chocolate chip cookies, with no hint of apple at all.
However, perhaps because of the added sugar in applesauce, they were very chewy and tougher than the others I baked.
They weren't unpleasant to eat by any means, but the texture just wasn't as good as the other batches.
Plain yogurt is a staple in my house, and the cookies only needed a small amount of it.
I use plain yogurt for smoothies, bowls, and even as a sour-cream alternative, so I always have a tub of it in the fridge.
For this test, I used a scoop from my 24-ounce tub of 2% fat plain yogurt from a local dairy producer that cost me $7.50. However, a small, single-serving cup of store-brand yogurt could work for this recipe for a lower upfront cost.
Based on my internet queries, it only takes 1/4 cup of yogurt to replace an egg.
My yogurt dough was dense and crumbly.
This dough smelled very strongly of yogurt, with a tangy scent that was pretty unpleasant. It felt dense but also crumbly.
These cookies took the longest time to bake.
Yogurt can be good for emulsifying and leavening, so it's no surprise that this batch had cookies with the most height.
They barely flattened as they baked, which meant the centers of the cookies needed more time in the oven. In total, these took 21 minutes to bake — the longest time of the five batches.
The resulting cookies had a lot of height and more of a dense, blondie-like consistency.
The texture of the yogurt cookies was nice, with a slightly chewy bottom and a very soft but dense center. They reminded me of a brownie or blondie.
I didn't notice much of a difference in the flavor of the cookies compared to the original recipe.
Finally, I made use of waste by whipping up aquafaba.
For the final batch, I reserved some aquafaba from a can of chickpeas. This is a popular egg substitute in vegan recipes.
The can of chickpeas cost under $2, and I was using the legumes to make lunch. I don't normally reserve this liquid, so it felt nice to use up something that I usually just strain down the sink.
To replace one full egg, I reserved 3 tablespoons of aquafaba. Then, I used a handheld milk frother to whip it until foamy.
The dough seemed normal and didn't smell weird.
The aquafaba didn't smell great at first, but the fragrance seemed to neutralize after whipping.
Fortunately, the dough didn't take on any odd or chickpea smells. Still, it was somewhat dense and pretty sticky.
This batch baked quickly, but the cookies spread a lot.
The cookies made with aquafaba took the shortest time in the oven, requiring only 15 minutes.
In that time, the cookies spread out more than the other batches. They just didn't have much of that rise that an egg can give.
The resulting cookies were tasty but quite crumbly.
The flavor was nearly identical to my standard cookie recipe with egg, and I was impressed that the aquafaba didn't leave behind an earthy taste at all.
The cookies fell apart as I handled them, though, a problem that none of the other cookies had. Because of that, I think these might be best suited for crumbling over ice cream.
All in all, I'd use most of these substitutes again in a pinch.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with most of these egg substitutes. Every batch tasted great, so most issues came down to texture.
I'd probably skip the applesauce for chocolate chip cookies because they turned out too chewy for my liking.
The aquafaba cookies tasted great, but this substitute isn't my top choice because these cookies were a bit thinner and more crumbly than the others. The yogurt-based cookies were fine, if a little dense and chewy.
My favorites of the bunch were the flaxseed and the egg-replacer cookies. Both ingredients resulted in cookies with excellent taste and texture.
In my house, we particularly liked the nutty flavor of the flaxseed eggs, and that will be our go-to egg alternative for our favorite cookie recipe.
