Agar is a great egg replacement, especially when egg whites are required!
Eggs are an key ingredient of most baking recipes & desserts. For those that are allergic to egg, or vegan we recommend experimenting with Agar as an egg substitute.
Replacing Eggs With Agar
There are two things to consider when replacing eggs:
- yolk – gives “lift” to a recipe
- white – binds the ingredients in a recipe
The egg replacement we make with Agar is best to substitute egg whites, so will help bind the ingredients but won’t help give a good rise. Add an extra 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder per recipe to help prevent it from being too dense. Some recipes also use mashed bananas to replace the yolk.
This preparation is suitable to replace egg whites in baking recipes or custards-like chocolate mousse.
Ingredients:
for each egg white, dissolve tsp Agar powder in 1 tbsp water.
To dissolve, first sprinkle the powder over the liquid, rest for 5 minutes and warm to 90 C over medium heat.
Method:
Using a whisk, whip the Agar mixture well to help dissolve, then refrigerate for 15 minutes and whip again. Add the Agar to the baking mixture as the last ingredient and mix to just combine, do not overwork the mixture.
Using Agar in recipes is a healthy alternative as it is fat free, low in calories,high in mineral & fibres and mildly laxative (it helps regulate & cleanse the bowel).
Agar can be used in other ways – read this for more.
