We Are Snowed In - Time To Bake!

I'm really glad that today is a Sunday because I can't imagine trying to get to work when it looks like this outside:

After this big dump of snow, we are supposed to drop way below zero.  Kayleigh's school is already cancelled for Monday and Tuesday and Bill's start time for work tomorrow has been pushed back three and a half hours.  All the local colleges and universities are even closed.  Although I have what I would consider to be one of the least essential jobs in the world, I will be at work tomorrow!

This afternoon while Bill was outside trying to get the snow off our garage so it doesn't cave in and Kayleigh was downstairs running on the treadmill, I decided to bake!  I had several ideas in mind but when I noticed that my blondie recipe calls for three eggs, I decided to try our eggless experiment again.  That allowed me to say I was "working on a blog post" instead of "baking cookies to stuff in my face while watching TV"!  No more guilt!

I used the arrowroot mixture again so for three eggs it was 3 tablespoons arrowroot and 9 tablespoons water.  I was worried at first because it looked like it was separating but after mixing it at high speed for about a minute, it looked better.  The final batter was the same appearance and consistency (and taste because you know we always eat the batter!) as usual. The bars tasted better than usual because they were a little less oily which was nice.

                                                        This it what it looks like when you first add the arrowroot.

I'm really surprised that it worked for three eggs. It appears that this substitution will work for any baked goods kind of recipes.

Blondies

3/4 cup margarine

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons arrowroot powder

9 tablespoons water

2 1/4 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the arrowroot and water together and set aside.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

In a mixer, beat the margarine, sugars, and vanilla until well combined.  While the mixer is on low, slowly add in the arrowroot mixture.  Beat about one minute.  Gradually mix in the flour mixture.  Stir in the chips.

Pour the batter into a parchment lined 15x10 inch baking pan.  Spread it evenly over the pan.  Bake for 15-20 minutes. Watch it carefully.  It seems to go straight from raw to burnt.  Cool completely and then cut in squares.

 Here it the batter .

 It almost overflowed!

UPDATE: The state just declared a state of emergency.  Only emergency vehicles allowed on the road.  Please let the power stay on!

Eggless Experiment Revisited & Week 2 Exercise Goal

Last night around 8 PM I decided that I had to have brownies.  I have several vegan brownie recipes that are good but they are never the same as a box mix.  We had discovered earlier this year that Betty Crocker makes a mix that doesn't contain dairy so we've had a couple boxes of that on hand for when I needed brownies quickly.  We've always used Egg Beaters with it though.

This past summer, Kayleigh and I tested several egg substitute options by replacing the one egg in chocolate chip cookies.  Last night we decided to try our favorite to replace the two eggs called for with the brownie mix.  Our favorite of the five options we tried was the arrowroot powder so we used 2 tablespoons of that mixed with 6 tablespoons water.

I didn't notice any difference in the taste or texture.  Kayleigh thought they actually tasted better.  So now we know that will work for replacing two eggs as well as it did for one.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for a recipe that calls for 3 eggs for a future test. Usually the more eggs you are replacing, the less successful the results so we'll see.

 As for my weekly exercise goal, here are my results for this week:

12/1 - 12/7
Total workout time: 2 hours 8 minutes
Total run distance: 4 miles

I met my goal again but I almost didn't.  We are trying to get a lot of house projects done before Christmas this year so our house has looked like this lately:

That has made it a little harder to get my workouts in.  Last night I knew I still needed 1 mile of running and about 15 minutes which is obviously doable but I thought brownies sounded better than running at 8 PM!  Then when we were about to put them in the oven, I started to feel guilty so on the spur of the moment, I jumped on the treadmill and told Kayleigh to call me when the brownies were done.  So my goal was met and I got to eat brownies too!

Eggless Experiment #5 - Ener-G Egg

Our final test!  Thank goodness.  Who knew you could get tired of cookies?!

This time we chose to go with the commercial egg replacer - Ener G Egg.  It is made up of various starches.  Every time I pull this box out of the cabinet I think it is something left over from 1972.  Who came up with the packaging?  Anyway, I've used this plenty of times in various items and it has always worked OK. Not perfect but fine.

We noticed our cookie dough was a little more runny this time and the cookies looked kind of oily.  I'm not sure if that was because of the replacer or because it was ridiculously hot and humid this week.  Whatever the issue was, the dough and cookies tasted fine.  They became very flat five minutes after getting out of the oven but that seemed to be a common problem with all the replacements we tried.

When I tasted the warm cookie, it tasted good but there was something different about the taste that I couldn't quite figure out.  Then Kayleigh hit on it.  Cake batter.  The baked cookie tasted just like yellow cake batter.  Strange but still tasty.

So to summarize our results, chia seeds are the only ones that we would suggest you never try.  All the rest will work and give you decent results.  Our order from best to worst is:

#1 Arrowroot Powder
#2 Ener G Egg
#3 Hemp Seeds
#4 Flax Seeds
#5 Chia Seeds - seriously, don't use these.  Skip the cookie and just eat the chocolate chips!

Our experiment is done for now but if anyone has any other substitutes they'd like us to try in the chocolate chip cookies, let us know.  Also leave a comment if you'd like us to try any of these replacements in some other recipe. 

Eggless Experiment #4 - Flax Seed

 

It almost doesn't seem fair for anything to have to follow the huge success of arrowroot powder last week.  Still we continued on this week with flax seed.  I've used ground flax seed in the past in corn bread with good results.  I think I've used it a few other times too when I've been in a pinch.  I used to buy both regular ground flax seed and the golden but now I only buy the golden.  That was probably good because the other may change the color of the cookies.

To replace one egg you use 1 tablespoon ground flax seed and 3 tablespoons warm water.  I let my tap run and get as warm as possible.  I whisked it together and then let the mixture set for a couple minutes.  It turned porridge-like.  I followed the same chocolate chip cookie recipe found here.

The dough had the normal consistency, taste and color.  The cookies baked up well but shortly after coming out of the oven, they became very flat.  The taste of the cookies both warm and cold was good but there was a slightly "healthy" flavor as if you used oatmeal or whole wheat flour.  None of us could exactly explain it but we all noticed it.

I would put flax seed in a tie with hemp seeds for 2nd place.  Arrowroot powder remains the clear winner and chia seeds are by far the worst choice.  Next week we have our final option which is Ener-G Egg Replacer.


 

Eggless Experiment #3 - Arrowroot Powder

So far we have tried hemp seeds which were a success and chia seeds which were a complete failure.  This week it is arrowroot powder.  I've used this to replace cornstarch before but never eggs.  You mix 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder with 3 tablespoons water and add it to the recipe as you would the egg.  For the recipe we are using see the original eggless experiment post. 

The dough looked and tasted the same as regular chocolate chip cookies so that was already an improvement over last week!  One difference was that for the past two weeks, the cookies baked only 8 minutes but these had to go 10 minutes.

The cookies looked good when we pulled them out of the oven.  We let them cool slightly then tasted them.  I thought they tasted fantastic.  The edges were crunchy but the center was the perfect chewy cookie texture.  Also, the taste was delicious.  Much better than past weeks.  When asked, Bill said "they taste good".  We'll take that as a ringing endorsement!

Kayleigh and I had them again today after they had cooled completely.  They lost the crunchy edges but still tasted wonderful.  These were so good, I'm tempted to end the experiment right here - but we won't.  Next week - flax seeds.

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.

Eggless Experiment #1 - Hemp Seeds

First of all, that workout yesterday didn't even feel like exercise but Kayleigh and I are both very, very sore today!  My arms hurt the most but my back, legs, shoulders, basically my whole body, is feeling the pain today.  Now on to the real post.

I am always writing down various egg replacement suggestions as I come across them.  I decided to pick a recipe and try several of the options to see which one works best.  Kayleigh is going to help and Bill volunteered to be a taste tester (what a sacrifice!).

I selected this chocolate chip cookie recipe because it doesn't make too many cookies and it calls for only one egg.  Usually with egg substitutes, the more eggs you are replacing, the less effective they work.  We might take the top two from this experiment and try a recipe with more eggs in it.

I'm not sure where this recipe came from originally.  When I moved into an apartment for my junior year of college, my mom typed up several recipe cards for me and this was one of them.  These are chewy cookies, not cake-like.  Here is the original recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies - Original Recipe

2/3 C margarine
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 C chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix margarine, sugar, brown sugar, egg and vanilla thoroughly.  Stir dry ingredients together.  Blend in.  Mix in chocolate chips.  Drop by rounded teaspoonsful about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Cool before removing from sheets.


First of all is "teaspoonsful" a word?  That is what is on my card.  Anyway, you get the idea.  Also, we used parchment paper on the pan.

We get these from amazon.

So this time we chose to substitute the egg with 1 tablespoon of hemp seeds and 3 tablespoons of water.  We used room temperature water (it is freezing here right now so our room temperature is a little colder than usual).  We mixed the water and seeds together in a bowl and left them sit for a couple minutes but I don't think this is necessary.  The seeds didn't seem to soften during that time.

In case you don't know what hemp seeds look like.

 

First we tasted the unbaked dough because that is our favorite part.  We all agreed that the taste, texture, and appearance of the dough was the same as always.  After baking the cookies, we didn't notice any difference in the appearance.  The taste of the warm cookies was a little gummy but once they cooled, we couldn't tell any difference from a traditional chocolate chip cookie.  



Overall we rate this as a success.  They were easy to substitute, didn't change anything about the cookie and we always have hemp seeds on hand because I use them in my morning smoothie.

Here are some pictures of the process (although I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to make chocolate chip cookies!).

I love these blue bowls I'm using to pour the dry ingredients into the mixer.  They collapse so that you can pour everything into that small space without it going all over the counter.  I don't know what they are called but I think I got them from chefscatalog.com.

Next week we are going to try chia seeds.