gluten free egg replacements

Chicken egg replacements for gluten free sweet baking*

This isn't an exhaustive list, there are lots of other options but a lot of them rely on gluten doing some of the work of holding/binding a baked good together. Here are the ones I have used and recommend with lil notes.  

Flax

1tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp + 10 minutes = 1 egg

Too much flax seed can sometimes have a mineral/fishy taste to baked goods. I have only noticed it when trying to make flax crackers... but I would never try to make a flax seed souffle, otherwise it is a great option. This also works well for savory breads. Low histamine

Chia

1tbsp ground chia seeds + 1/3 cup water + 10 minutes = 1 egg

Chia seed will get stuck in your teeth like a larger poppy seed. You can use ground chia seeds instead - just measure the amount whole you need then grind for your recipe. The soaking time will also be a little less. This also works well for savory breads. Low histamine

Yogurt

1/4cup cow or nut milk yogurt or silken tofu = 1 egg

Yogurts work well as egg substitutes, but they all have different textures/thicknesses. If you are making a recipe you know know, you may need to adjust with a bit more water/milk/liquid to ensure the consistency is correct. Don't use Greek style yogurt or sour cream here, it won't have enough water content. 

Fruit

1/4 cup of cooked applesauce or raw mashed banana = 1 egg

Applesauce or banana is great for texture but will increase the sugar and fiber content of your recipe. If you are making pancakes, waffles, brownies, etc. it won't really be noticeable. 

Honorable mention - Psyllium Husk Fiber
This works best when it is powdered and mixed 1/3cup water to 1/2tsp psyllium husk powder + 20 minutes to re-hydrate before use. I didn't list it here because I usually use psyllium as my xanthan gum replacement for gluten free baking... so it is already doing work and I usually call in one of the other options above. I do not like the whole husk for aesthetic reasons. (We all have our quirks)

Not listed...

I don't mess with aquafaba - a great savory egg replacement option made from cooked chick pea liquid. Lots of other people love it - it really can be a very close faux whipped egg white option.

I also omitted the club soda + baking powder, or extra water + oil, and the arrowroot+water options because they don't work well as 1:1 substitutes for all gluten free baking. 

*I said sweet baking. I meant it. These are all going to make gross egg-free quiches. Don't.

fermented mustard

Fermented Mustard
1 1/2 cups whole mustard seeds, pulsed a few times in a spice grinder
4 tsp sea salt
1 cup raw apple cider vinegar (the bottles that says "with mother")
1/2 cup filtered water (no chlorine is key)
2 tbsp raw sauerkraut juice
1/4 cup verjus*

Mix all ingredients in a glass jar. Leave slightly covered at room temp for 1-3 weeks. Store in refrigerator.

I was watching It's Alive, because fermenting things is one of my most favorite things. Seriously, it makes me feel like a kitchen witch every time I can transform a thing into another thing that doesn't go bad because it rotted in the BEST way.

The episode where Brad ferments mustard really blew me away. I had never thought of fermenting mustard seeds and immediately wanted to know what it tasted like.

The first batch I made was much hotter and had some ground mustard, garlic and onion powder. With this recipe I really wanted to see how paired down I could get it. The grind on the seeds is pretty course; I pulsed them just a few times to break most of them up.

For the first few days the mix smells so strong its almost painful. After about a week it started to mellow out, but it was still hot, think Chinese mustard hot. 3 weeks in is when I decided it was done and moved it to the fridge. The finished product tastes like mustard, but better. It is hot, but just at the start, then chills out.

I have used it in marinades, sauces, and salad dressings (really great with a bit of honey, lemon, olive oil).

*Verjus is a pretty special and hard to find ingredient.You can replace it with some sugar - the goal is to give the bacteria something to kick start the fermentation process.
I happened to have some around because I was recreating a medieval fish recipe. It is made from unfermented green grapes. It has a wonderful bright sour flavor that is sweeter than vinegar. (It was also used in cocktails when limes were difficult to procure. It makes a FANTASTIC margarita!)

oven roasted chick peas

This is a recipe that I forget where it came from. I think it happened after I "discovered" kale chips last year and decided to try to oven roast/fry nearly everything. These chick peas have become the single-most popular (and requested) party snack I make.

The recipe is really easy to modify or adapt to your particular tastes - I often omit the cayenne if I am bringing it to a group of unknown human mouths who might not love the warm kick. You really can't go wrong unless you put dried herbs in - those babies will burn and make your delicious fried orbs taste horrible - trust me. 

If you are going to make a big batch, it is worth it to buy dried chick peas and soak and boil them yourself. It  takes more time, but is so much cheaper. (if you do this, you will need to add more salt) That said, canned chick peas aren't that expensive and you are the boss of you, so do what feels right. 

oven roasted chick peas

2 cans of chick peas, drained and washed well

1/4 cup olive oil 

1/4 tsp smoked cinnamon

cayenne (you can substitute something more mild like aleppo, but hold off and add it half way through cooking)

sea salt (you are going to use this 2x)

1/2 tsp ground celery seed

1 tsp toasted onion powder or garlic powder -both if you are awesome

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin 

Pre-heat oven to 400F

1. Drain those chick peas really well

2. Spread them out on to a sheet pan or a baking dish - you don't want them doubled up

3. Generously coat the chick peas in olive oil - you should see extra puddling 

4. Sprinkle on the spices and salt. You will be tempted to roll the chick peas around to coat them DON'T. It will cause most of the deliciousness to fall off into the oil. 

5. Place the peas in the oven for 35-45 minutes - you are going to want to flip them at least 2x

6. Done = the chick peas shrinking to half their size, and darkening without burning. If you see some of them start to flake off their outer shell and crisp, you are there. 

So now you have a choice - take them out of the oven when they are crispy on the outside and a little soft in the middle, or keep on cooking for another ~10 minutes to get them to be more like the texture of spicy Indian snack mix. I prefer them the first way, but the second is also great

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan. 

8. If you manage to not devour them immediately, store in an air-tight container. If you make them a few days ahead of time, they will get a little soggy. You can pop them back in the oven, or a toaster oven, for a few minutes on 400 until you hear them start to sizzle, remove, cool, and serve. 

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nearly carb free friendship - sugar free gluten free pudding

Friendship is weird. It is wonderfully complicated and gets better once you have gone through something really unpleasant together and come out the other side still wanting to talk to each other. So when a friend tells me I can't eat _____, I feel a special need to try to ease the transition. Us, those whom gluten cannot pass our lips, understand better than most, what it feels like when your food life is messed with.

That is how a nearly carb-free dessert was concocted. Count yourself among my pals, and a lover of sweets, well this is my best effort at a chocolate dessert for you. 

This recipe takes two days to make, which is ridiculous if you compared it to traditional pudding, but consider it like you would icebox pie, something that needs the power of the refrigerator and time to make delicious. 

There are three steps: creating the licorice syrup, soaking the chia seeds and cocoa powder, and then combining and cooking. Using both the licorice and stevia worked well together. Licorice has that sweetness that doesn't hit till your finished and your palate is nearly cleaned, and the stevia hits more up front at the start of the first bite - so together they work pretty well and don't test chemically or too weird.  (Surprisingly, the finished product does not taste like licorice at all!)

This isn't going to be a sweet dessert, it is going to end up tasting like a chocolate pudding like thing but its no pudding pop. You might be tempted to add more sweetener(s), don't. Adding more stevia or licorice results in a very off-putting mess that tastes more like you lost a dare and had to eat an entire packet of Equal. 

Licorice "syrup" 

3-4" piece of licorice root, bent into pieces if you can

1 1/2 cups of boiling water

1. In a heat safe bowl, pour the boiling water over the licorice root. 

2. Allow to steep for at least 2 hours, overnight if you can. 

The water will turn light yellow, then bright yellow.

Pudding base

1 cup coconut milk - the pour-able-when-cold kind from a tetra pack

1/4 cup chia seeds

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

pinch of sea salt

1. Combine all ingredients - you are going to need a fork or whisk to break up the cocoa powder

2. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight

Finished product

1/4 cup of the licorice syrup

Pudding base

4 drops liquid stevia extract

1. In a saucepan, boil 1/4 cup of the licorice syrup. 

2. Once it has come to a boil, add in the pudding base, stirring constantly. The whole goal is to cook the mixture so it doesn't taste like raw cocoa powder. This will take about 10 minutes, or until the mixture darkens and no longer tastes chalky. 

3. Remove from the heat and add in the 4 drops of stevia. 

4. You can enjoy it warm, or return it to the fridge to chill. Using the pour-able coconut milk will help prevent the pudding from separating or hardening when cold. 

I couldn't pick a name - faux-pioca doesn't have quite the right ring to it. I am calling it pretty darn delicious. 

gluten free digestive tea

Most teas labeled "good for digestion" contain gluten. For some reason, malted barley gets tucked into tea bags as the digestion helper. Since barley is not one of the 8 mandatory allergens that must be disclosed (in the USA), it is often hard to know which teas are safe - I am staring you down "natural flavorings". For the most part, I grab some ginger chews and forgo the landmine of packaged teas.

A little inspiration from a local blog, and I decided to create my own winter mix.

1 part dried elderberry (immune system support)
1 part dried milk thistle (supports liver function)
1 part dried rose hips (high in vitamin c)
1 part dried hibiscus flours (beautiful red color)
1 part dried orange peel (tastes awesome)
0.5 part dried ginger root (pieces, not ground), the digestive aid

The resulting "tea"* really needs to steep for 5-10 minutes. It is a little peppery from the ginger and has a great bright right color with a gentle sourness; you can add some honey to round out the flavor. I hand-filled some teabags and you can see in the back I store them in a zip-lock. The rest I saved for when I am at home can can use a metal brew basket.

*Technically a tea has to include actual tea leaves, but I am going to take the vernacular liberties here.

KABLAM - the result tastes awesome and doesn't ironically cause digestive unrest.

Gluten free pumpernickel

"Wait, you can eat this?!"
"I would believe you if you said they didn't have wheat in them, but NO RYE?!"

These are the sounds of success.

It is great when people kindly nod their heads and say that your gluten free offering is "not bad" or "pretty good" but when you can pull the preverbial wool over their tastebuds, well then I know I have won.

I have been messing around with recreating pumpernickel ever since I found teff flour in an Ethiopian mini-mart in Maryland. Now back in Boston, it is a bit harder to find, but the Bob's Red Mill teff flour stuff is pretty close. It is significantly less fermented, so it smells different and requires more yeast - or a longer proofing time - to get going.

This recipe was hard to post and share since a very dear friend, who has passed, helped me develop and perfect it. It was around her dinner table, where so many amazing meals were had, where we discussed what this recipe needed: cocoa, coffee, and molasses. Those three ingredients took this from good to great. I will think of her lovingly every time I make a batch.

Gluten free pumpernickel
2 1/2 cups teff flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup arrowroot starch (+ 1/2 cup in reserve)
1/2 cup rice flour
3/4 cup millet flour
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1 tbsp caraway seeds (optional)
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp psyllium husk
1 tbsp flax seed meal
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp espresso powder
2 tsp instant yeast
3 cups water
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup molasses


1. Combine all of the wet ingredients, and yeast, into a mixing bowl.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients.
3. On very low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet.
4. Mix to combine.
5. Allow the mixture to sit for 20-30 minutes (overnight is even better). You are looking for the batter to go from a chocolate pudding consistency to something almost as thick as warm frosting. 
6. Now comes the tricky part. If you let it rest for 20-30 minutes you are going to need to see if it has set up enough. Again, you are looking for it to be much thicker, and fall off in plops off the beater or paddle. If it is a bit runny, slowly mix up to 1/2 cup more arrowroot starch. If this scares the baking pants off you - just cover the mixture with plastic wrap and put it in your fridge over night, and skip to #7.
7. Preheat the oven to 425F.
8. Grease 2 muffin tins.
9. Scrape down the batter, and then scoop it into the muffin tins (22-24)
10. Bake at 425F for 30-45 minutes, or until you can pierce the rolls with a toothpick and the center comes out clean.
11. Cool and eat!

This is a bad photo, but you can see the awesome crumb structure and that they do not deflate. I recommend serving them with butter and salt, goat cheese - I am not in any way suggesting you should forgo the pastrami.

kale chips

I did not want to make them. Kale chips seem like the "hip new health food", and I admit that I am the type of person who baulks a bit at food trends. (I dislike cupcakes and 2008 did not change my mind.)

It took seeing a small 2oz package of kale chips for over $6 to break me. I got a pound of kale, went home, used the googler, and made a batch myself.

All the recipes seemed too simple. Wash kale. Remove stem. Toss with olive oil and salt. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

I was wrong. Really wrong. THESE ARE AWESOME!!
They have the crisp-ness and salt of a potato chip, but are more interesting and super thin. They almost shatter in your mouth (in a good way). They are so addictive I nearly polished off the entire batch!

Urfa pepper

It might be time, but I will never admit I have a problem. I collect dried herbs and spices. I sort of find unexplained joy and pleasure in trying a new one for the first time. There is a thrill to seeing something for the first time, mentally playing with what it might smell and taste like. Then there is the joy of trying to sniff the item through the packaging, without looking completely ridiculous (if you have figured this out, please share, I fail even when sniffing coffee). The whole way home I get to hem and haw about what this product MIGHT taste like, and what it might play well with in the kitchen.  

When I saw urfa pepper in the Armenian market in Watertown, MA I grabbed a bag and let out an audible "oooooh".

Here pictured next to a bag of alleppo pepper. (I couldn't resist them either, especially when I saw how oily the bright red flecks were)

The peppers are dried and sweated in the sun. The flavor is somewhat similar to an ancho; they are smokey and raisin-like, but urfas have an earthier quality, deeper smokey flavor that is less hot and less sweet. I love using it on roasted root vegetables and meat. It might be my new favor chile.

Jujuju juice it, real good

In addition to joining a gym I've been juicing... fruits and veggies, not the other kind. I did a short stint at the now defunct Bananarama in Amherst, MA blending smoothies and crafting juices. Adding ginger changed my opinion of veggie-heavy fruit juices; it really helps it sparkle so it is not too vegetal. Carrot-beet-apple-celery with a hint of ginger is one of my all time favorites. I have been messing around with adding more greens - it definitely changes the color, but if there are some sweet fruits thrown in, the end result is really great.

technicolor snack brought to you by:
beets, beet greens, kale, carrot, zucchini, cucumber, apple, ginger

not by the hairs of my ginny gin gin

Ever since I tackled tonic water, I have been wanting to attempt homemade gin. Actually, that is a bit of a lie. Several years ago, I got into a rather heated discussion about my adamant dislike of gin. It falls into the category of "it tastes like licking a christmas tree, which I am not into". (see also, pine nuts)

For this reason, I had been seeking out a juniper-free gin. Apparently if you remove the juniper, gin it cannot be. Gin only is if juniper is present. This conversation lead to a quest for an "infused vodka" that contained all of the gin botanicals, sans juniper. We found one, but Four Square. It was ok, but very very very floral, and I say that in a grandma's perfume sort of way; not what I want in a cocktail, ever.

Recently being given a bergamot orange, I got inspired to muck around with centuries worth of fine acohol making. (Bergamot oil and/or peel is what gives earl grey tea its quintessential flavor and aroma.)

"Gin" or "infused vodka attempt 1"
4 cups vodka
1/4 ceylon cinnamon stick
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
2 whole allspice berries
1/2 a green corriander pod
1/4 tsp whole cubebs
1/4 tsp grains of paradise
zest of 1/4 a navel orange
zest of 1/4 a bergamot orange

I zested the citrus into the vodka, to aid in it funneling back into the bottle. I didn't use the full peel, because I fear the bitter.

I am hoping that the bergamont will offer up some of the intensity that the juniper usually does. I didn't have any licorice root, so I went with fennel seeds. The cubebs and grains of paradise are hard-to-find spices, but they don the back of the Bombay Sapphire bottle, so I thought since I was out at Christina's Spice Shop, I may as well pick some up and give it a try. The bay leaf isn't on any recipe either, but Knauer's recipe in Gourmet called for rosemary, and since I think that stuff takes like turpentine in large quantities, I thought maybe the bay would bring some earthiness and subtlety to the bottle.

All that is left is to wait and taste.

Homemade tonic water

Several friends have invested in seltzer makers. They save money and make fun farting noises, what is not to love? The discussion about whether it was possible to make homemade tonic water arose. Always a fan of an overly complicated way to make something from scratch that is probably cheaper and easier to just purchase, I decided to research the project immediately.

Step 1 - find a recipe
There are several out there, but almost all point to Jeffrey Morgenthaler's How To Make Your Own Tonic Water. Other recipes offer more exotic mix-ins, and some offered sugar rather than agave nectar as sweeteners. 

Step 2 - find ingredients
I knew that citric acid was available at the co-op, but I could not find the cinchona bark - the ingredient that contains quinine - anywhere. I tried the health food store, the food co-op, spice shops; a friend even translated cinchona into pinyin and I attempted to find the bark at 3 pharmacies in Chinatown. No dice.

I finally broke down and purchased online from Penn Herb Co for $25/lb. plus shipping. I had to get a pound of the stuff, and the recipes only call for a quarter cup, so its safe to say that this is going to be one of many attempts at tonic water.

Step 3 - Making the goods

Tonic Water Syrup
4 cups water
1 cup chopped lemongrass
¼ cup cinchona bark
zest and juice of 1 orange
zest and juice of 1 lemon
zest and juice of 1 lime
zest and juice of 1 grapefruit
1 tsp whole allspice berries
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
¼ cup citric acid
¼ tsp Kosher salt

3 cups of sugar
1 cup of water

1. Combine the 4 cups of water, bark, zest, juice, spices, citric acid and salt into a sauce pan.
2. Bring to a boil, lower and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Allow the mixture to cool, then strain through coffee filters - this takes a while.
4. In a clean sauce pan, combine the strained mixture with 1 cup of water and 3 cups of sugar. Bring to a low boil to disolve all the sugar.
5. Allow the mixture to cool.
6. Combine the mixture with seltzer and booze of your choice.
¾ ounce of syrup, 1½ ounces of gin and 2 ounces of soda water - is what Morgenthaler recommends. I prefer 1 part syrup to 2 parts soda water and 1 part vodka. But you have taste buds of your own, so do what feels right.

Lemongrass is a beast of a plant to cut. You will need a sharp knife, and probably 2 stalk = 1 cup chopped. Its worth it. Don't skip this step, plus the inside is PURPLE!

A rasp is key for this project - it will get the zest without the white pith.

EVERYONE IN THE POT!

Cool down...

The flavor is a lot more complex than the clear tonic water you can buy in the store. It is not nearly as sweet, and with the exception of the bitterness from the quinine, its hard to pick out each of the individual ingredients, but I mean that in a good way. The flavor is pretty complex, but it doesn't fight with the gin, if gin happens to be your mix-in of choice. I would say that if you have a soda-stream at home, to make the water extra farty, since stirring in the syrup does knock out some of the carbonation.

The final product is good, really good. Better than I expected and worth the effort.

Consider it summer and me tickled pink.

Daikon salad

It has really warmed up in Boston, so the idea of turning on an oven, or even the stove has ranged from -234 to about 1. (I am visiting Boston for a bit, and apparently compared to the scorching weather in D.C. I should not be complaining.)

With bbqs slated for the long weekend, I wanted to bring something bright, fresh and requiring zero heat to prepare. I found some fresh daikon in Chinatown and decided on a vinegar-but-not-quite-pickled salad.

The ingredients: daikon radish, jicima (I decided to omit, so just admire it), scallions, kolrabi, carrots, nappa cabbage and a jalapeno

Wash and peel the daikon:

With a hand peeler, or mandolin, very thinly slice the daikon. (I split it in half when the slices got too big for the peeler, so there were rounds and half moon shapes.)

Peel and ribbon the carrot - basically keep peeling the carrot, rotating it around so you get thin slices.

Cut the ribbons into thirds:

Peel the kolrabi - you are going to need a knife for the peeling part because the outside is thick and fibrous, but the inside is AWESOME. It tastes a bit like sweet broccoli, mixed with turnip. After its peeled, you can treat it like the daikon, and thinly slice it with the peeler or mandolin.

Clean the scallions and separate the greens from the whites. Thinly slice the white ends vertically to create long, thin slices. Save the greens for another thing.

Put all the chopped and sliced veggies into a salad spinner and SPIN. Get them as dry as possible.

In a separate bowl, add the sliced jalepenos - as much as you like (this pepper was very mild, so I kept the seeds in). Add in a few tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, a few teaspoons of sugar and a few good pinches of salt. (This is going to vary depending on how many veggies you have, start with 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt, and add more if you need it.)
Once the sugar and salt are disolved in the mix, you can toss in your veggies.

I added a little bit of lime juice to up the tartness. The longer the veggies sit in the mix, the more they will wilt and take on the vinegar flavor. Its great to serve it chilled with hot items off the grill.