5.7 KiB
+++ categories = ["food"] date = 2025-02-28T10:46:00-06:00 description = "" draft = false slug = "egg-replacer" title = "🥚 Egg Replacer" author = "nicholas" +++
Eggs are ~ $0.50 / egg, which is far too high a price to pay. This presents a fun opportunity to attempt a recipe using a custom formulation of egg replacer. The purpose of an egg can be many: to provide structure, leavening, moisture, and richness (fat). My goal is to formulate a substitute that, at least on paper, will replace the function of an egg using ingredients that are cheaper than an egg.
Commercial Egg Replacers
I chose the first two commercial egg replacers with easily-discoverable nutrients and ingredients that I found for my quick analysis.
ingredients
The ingredient lists below show similarities between two different manufacturers' egg replacer formulations. Both contain leavening agents and thickening starches.
{{< image src="images/ingredients_egg-replacer_franklin-farms-east.PNG" caption="Franklin Farms East" >}}
{{< image src="images/ingredients_egg-replacer_bobs-red-mill.PNG" caption="Bob's Red Mill" >}}
Instructions
Their instructions for use are also the same. This reassures me that egg replacement is a solved problem, as it is widely commercially available and thus viable to its consumers.
{{< image src="images/instructions_egg-replacer_bobs-red-mill.PNG" caption="Bob's Red Mill Instructions" >}}
Comparison to an actual egg
According to the instructions provided by Bob's Red Mill and Franklin Farms East, one egg can be replaced with 1 Tbsp. Egg Replacer combined with 2 Tbsp. water. I will convert the volume measurements to weight measurements so that I can more easily compare them to an actual egg. Since 1 Tbsp. water weighs 15 grams, and one Tbsp. egg replacer weighs ~ 10 grams, the total weight or both egg replacement formulas is 45 grams.
| Product | Weight (g) | Water (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Eggs, Grade A, Large, egg whole | 50 | 76 |
| Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer | 45 | 67 |
| Franklin Farms East Egg Replacer | 45 | 67 |
Egg nutrients per 100 g
| Nutrient | Average Amount | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 75.8 | g |
| Energy | 147 | kcal |
| Protein | 12.4 | g |
| Total lipid (fat) | 9.96 | g |
| Carbohydrate, by difference | 0.96 | g |
| Carbohydrate, by summation | 0.2 | g |
| Fiber, total dietary | <0.75 | g |
| Sugars, Total | 0.2 | g |
Adding fat (lecithin)
Commercial egg replacers often exclude fat. I do not know the reasons for this exclusion, since eggs contain around 10% fat by weight. Maybe for shelf-stability, cost reduction, maximizing versatility. Fat has a shorter shelf-life, and is relatively expensive compared to starches and gums. Egg replacers often require processing the product in the end anyway: one must add water, mix, wait, etc. If adding fat is important, the user will add it themselves. Perhaps some of this reasoning is correct, I do not know. I intend to add some fat.
I will add fat in part through the addition of liquid sunflower lecithin. This sort of kills two birds with one stone: I will replace some of the missing fat (lecithin is made of phospholipids, a type of fat), and introduce the absent emulsifier (eggs are known to be great natural emulsifiers because their yolk contains lecithin). Since I am missing around 5 grams of weight between the water and fat, I will add around 1 gram of soy lecithin.
Adding leavening (baking powder)
I want to use baking powder in my formulation. This is what Franklin Farms East uses, and if it is good enough for them, it ought to be good enough for me. Also, it is convenient that I can make an estimate of how much baking powder is present in the egg replacer by deriving the value from the amount of sodium present. I need to determine how much baking powder is in the 100 g egg replacer mixture, given that it contains 170 mg of sodium.
Baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, etc.) contains sodium, obviously. Without having to do any complicated chemistry algebra, I can go directly to the source, at the nutrition label of baking powder, to see how much sodium is present in a given quantity. This image is from Bob's Red Mill baking powder. It contains 16059.37 mg per 100 g of baking soda, or, 161 mg / g.
{{< image src="images/baking-powder-sodium_bobs-red-mill.PNG" caption="Baking Powder Sodium" >}}
Calculating baking powder
Let $x$ be the amount of baking powder needed (in grams):
170 \text{ mg} = x \times 161 \text{ mg/g}
x = \frac{170}{161} \approx 1.06 \text{ g}
To obtain 170 mg of sodium in the final mixture, I need 1.06% baking powder by weight.
Formulation
Thus I arrive at my final formula, ready to test in a cake recipe.
Ingredient Percentage and Amounts
| ingredient | % | amount (g) |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 65.00% | 32.5 |
| Tapioca Starch | 18.50% | 6.0125 |
| Oil \ fat | 12.00% | 6.00% |
| Liquid Sunflower Lecithin | 3.00% | 1.50 |
| Baking Powder | 1.50% | 0.4875 |
| TOTAL | 100.00% | 50 |
Done.