Flax egg tutorial

   When one starts the grand adventure that is veganism, or at least vegan adjacency, which is the most I can claim, one quickly discovers an entirely new, sometimes bewildering, lexicon of food terms. Coconut whip? Not a lash made of tropical fruit. Earth Balance? That had me stumped for a while.  It is not, somewhat disappointingly, some mystical substance rumored in Wiccan texts, but as it turns out, just a popular cost prohibitive vegan butter substitute. (As in, I have only bought it once and cried a little inside as I put it on the conveyor at checkout). And no, I have not found any other truly vegan margarine substitute so far, though I went into my neighborhood supermarket with high hopes for their store-brand butter sub. Such is life.

     One term that puzzled me for a while was ‘flax egg’. I was actually told about using flax as a replacement for egg years ago by a friend whose sister is allergic to eggs, but had not thought of it much since then. I remembered it quick enough when I switched diet camps, but didn’t investigate for a while because I doubted it could really work the same way an egg does. The moral of the story? It does, and in my experience any difference, taste or otherwise, is undetectable. 

    Since it’s something I’ll refer to in nearly all my baking recipes, I thought it might be wise to post a little tutorial for the uninitiated. For the flax egg shown here I used this golden flax, which I got at Costco. Before, I had used Bob’s Red Mill flaxseed meal. My new ground flax sets up almost immediately and gels to such an extent that you can turn the container upside down, and it won’t come out. The red flax I was using before took about ten minutes to set up and never achieved that state of solidity, on the contrary, there was always a thin layer of liquid still left on top of the mixture no matter how long I left it. I’m not sure if this is due to using a new flax variety or a different grind (I suspect the last), but all this to say, there can be a wide range of flax egg solidity and your results will be the same even if it doesn’t achieve the stiffness shown here.

To make a flax egg:

1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water

Mix flax and water and allow to set up in fridge for anywhere from 5-15 minutes. Then, use in baking as you would an egg. There is no difference in taste or consistency, in my experience, plus you get a little fiber boost and some lovely omega-3 fatty acids, along with some other super-healthy good stuff I don't actually care about that much but I promise sounds good on paper. Happy baking!

Flax egg, mixed with some oil and sugar.