Brownies and Zucchini

When I first started reading blogs – a year or so ago – I was naturally drawn to the ones that focused more on a vegetarian or vegan diet.  I am not completely vegetarian or vegan by any means, however, I tend to enjoy less meat in my diet than most carnivores – especially if I am making it for myself.

I have always been more comfortable baking than cooking.  I’m pretty sure this is because while I was living at home, my mom would make at least one baked good a week.  So I just got in the habit of baking with her, and eventually baking on my own.

The first few times I saw flax eggs on an ingredient list, I was rather confused. Although, at this point I really didn’t know anything about flax in general either.  At that point, I just would generally substitute normal eggs for these weird flax eggs.

At some point in the past few months I started to regularly have flaxseed meal (and flaxseed and sometimes even flax oil!) in my kitchen.  I think I had to buy it for something on my Thinkfood list, and it just became a staple in my kitchen.  During this same period, I found myself wanting to bake things – but was out of eggs.  There were a couple of times where I was SO close to trying out a recipe with flax eggs, but backed off.

When I made the Donut Muffins, I had heard many people rave about how good they were , so I didn’t want to mess with the formula and decided to stick with the flax egg over a real one.

This was slightly scary.  What if these delicious sounding muffins don’t turn out because I screw up this “flax egg” thing somehow?

Fortunately, making this flax egg was not at all hard.  It basically just involves mixing flaxseed meal with water, and letting it sit.  It then eventually gels up and mimics the consistency and properties of an egg.  The exact ratio of flaxseed meal to water can vary, however Heather suggested 1/2 Tablespoon flax meal to 2 Tablespoons water – so that is what I used.

I am not by any means an expert with this technique yet, but it was a lot easier than I expected it to be, and tasty as well! Flaxseed tends to have a nuttier taste, which I actually liked in these muffins!  It gave them a little more depth than just being a sugary ball of dough.

Have you made anything with flax eggs before?
Feel free to share your recipes in the comments, now that I’m more familiar with the technique, I’m willing to try more recipes!

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Filed under: 101 in 1001, Words Tagged: | 101 in 1001, flax egg