Butter and Egg Substitutes

Lately I've been giving the recipes on the back of food packaging more of a thought. I once made some really great oatmeal cookies off the back of a No Name rolled oat package. They went over well at work! On the back of my PC Organics Milled flax seed package is a recipe for Peanut Butter Flax Cookies I thought I'd try.

It's a very simple recipe so I thought I'd do some experimenting and replace the butter and eggs in the recipe for other ingredients to make them vegan.

There are many different options for replacing butter and eggs in cooking and baking but you need to be careful when and how you're replacing them or you change the nature of the dish.

I took a chance and learned that! Alright, I'll be honest. I'm still unsure if this is a fail or victory. I like the cookies but I'm not sure if I'd serve it to guests, at least guests that are expecting the standard cookie.

Butter in cookies, specifically, is what gives them their crispiness and what helps them flatten and spread out on your pan. So when I decided to use applesauce instead of butter I knew I was going to lose that property.

Eggs help stick all your ingredients together when baking. A mushy ripe banana is a good replacement for eggs and I've used them several times. However, there will be an unmistakable hint of banana in your dish. for the most part I like it! Banana's are my favourite and they can sweeten up a cake, bread or cookie. But, if you're making something like sugar  or gingerbread cookies you may not want that flavour.

(In case you're wondering I put a dab of honey on each of these cookies)

This combination of substitutions made my batter wetter to begin with and bake in the oven more like muffins than cookies. The first time around I spooned them out onto the pan and put them directly in the oven. They did not flatten out like I was expecting but stayed exactly how I had left them on the pan.

For the next round I decided to make them smaller, roll and flatten them like thumbprint cookies. This made them much rounder and smoother, but again they looked the same coming out as they did going in.

With the little batter I had left I decided to have a little fun! I rolled the dough and covered them in cinnamon sugar. When they came out of the oven the reminded me of doughnuts more than cookies!

Tough on the outside but soft on the inside these little cookies are dense! They taste more like doughnuts or muffins than cookies. With a hint of apple and the power combination of peanut butter and banana these little guys are easy to pop! They taste good with a glass of milk and I suspect would be nice with a cup of tea. A little drizzle of chocolate wouldn't hurt either.

Ingredients:
11/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup milled flax seed
11/2 t baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar (or use 1 cup and omit brown sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 t vanilla

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease your pan with oil or use parchment paper.

Stir together flour, flax seed and baking powder. Set aside.

In another bowl stir together peanut butter, applesauce, banana, sugar and vanilla then add to dry mix. Mix well until batter is smooth.

Roll about 1 tbsp of batter and place on pan, then flatten with a fork or your thumb.

Bake for about 13 minutes then remove and let cook from a couple minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

If you're looking for some more egg substitutions in cooking and baking here is what I've found from Fatfree Vegan Recipes:

Substitutes for one egg:

• A flax seed mixture, mix 1 tbsp. flax seed meal (ground flax seeds) with 3 tbsp. water in a blender.
• Half a small banana, mashed, is a good binder. 
• 1/4 cup of any kind of tofu blended with the liquid ingredients in the recipe.
• 1/4 cup of applesauce, canned pumpkin or squash, or pureed prunes are binders. These give baked goods a heavier texture, so you may want to add an extra 1/2 tsp. of baking powder. They can also flavor the finished product, so use with caution.
• Use an egg-replacer powder such as Ener-G to replace the eggs in baked goods. 1-1/2 tsp. mixed with 2 tbsp. of water.
• A heaping tbsp. of soy flour or bean flour mixed with a tbsp. of water. This mixture works similarly to vegetarian egg replacer.
• 2 T of cornstarch beaten with 2 tbsp. of water. This, too, works much like vegetarian egg replacer.

And for more information on butter free baking I found this article from about.com to be helpful.