Eggless Experiment #2 - Chia Seeds

This is week two of our egg replacement testing.  We used the same recipe as last week which can be found here.

This week we tried chia seeds.  This was the option I was most interested in because I make a porridge-type thing out of chia seeds.  They turn somewhat gelatinous when in liquid  so I thought that would emulate the consistency of eggs well.  Plus their taste is mild.

You use 2 tablespoons hot water (we used the hottest water we could get from the tap) and 1 tablespoon chia seeds per egg you are substituting.  I didn't have any instructions beyond that but we chose to mix the chia and water in a small bowl and set it aside for a few minutes to let the seeds soak up the liquid.

We followed the same procedure as last time, tasting the dough, warm cookies, and cooled cookies.  We judged the appearance and taste of the dough and then cookies.


Surprise - we didn't like them!  First of all, you could see the seeds in the dough and in the final cookies.  For this reason alone, I don't think this is a good substitute because when you are serving chocolate chip cookies, you want it to look like a normal chocolate chip cookie.  You could definitely tell there was something different about these from the first glance.

This is what the dough looked like before we added the chocolate chips.  See all those little black seeds?

As for the consistency of the dough it was fine and the taste was normal at first.  But once you swallowed it, you were left with little seeds in your teeth.

We all sat down to try the warm cookies at the same time. Bill had already discovered the little seeds in the dough so he was leery.  He took two bites and didn't finish his cookie.  He said it tasted like nothing.  Kayleigh and I liked the taste but didn't think it tasted quite "normal".  The seed problem with the dough was also a problem with the cookie. You were left with little seeds in your teeth.  Even though I like chia seeds, it was a little disturbing to have them still in my mouth after eating a cookie.  The positive side is that eating these cookies will encourage you to brush your teeth more often!

Kayleigh ate a cooled cookie last night and thought they were OK.  I had one today after lunch and now I see what Bill means when he says it has no taste.  It tasted like I was eating chocolate chips.  I broke off a little piece without any chips and it was tasteless.

The other issue was that the cookies got very flat when cooking.  I don't like puffy cookies but this was ridiculous.

So overall, while we will eat these cookies, they had too many negative points for us to use chia seeds as a substitute in other baked goods.

Next week - arrowroot powder.