The Absolute Best Dairy-Free Egg Alternative To Use In Your Cakes

For those moments when you must cater to dietary restrictions — or simply don't have an egg to crack into your planned cake recipe — hope is not lost when it comes to whipping up delicious desserts from scratch. You have several options to build texture and taste in vegan cake recipes without needing to reach for animal products or race to the store.

We spoke to artist Jerrelle Guy, author of "Black Girl Baking: Wholesome Recipes Inspired by a Soulful Upbringing" and recipe developer of Chocolate for Basil for some of the alternatives bakers can use when eggs must be left to the side. "For egg alternatives in cake recipes, I prefer using pureed fruits like applesauce, which contain natural lectins and are light binders, as opposed to chia or flax egg mixtures which can be very thick and prevent the cake from rising fully," Guy explains. Before you begin to eyeball replacements and start dumping ingredients into your mixing bowl, however, you may want to consider the recipe in its entirety.

With eggs taken out of the equation, bakers are dependent on using binding alternatives to keep ingredients together to build a chewy texture as batter bakes. Depending on the cake recipe you're setting out to make, Guy's suggested approach of using applesauce in your cake-baking attempts can lend a subtle sweetness to your treats. In addition to the added flavor, you may need to adjust the ratio of other ingredients to accommodate for the added moisture the applesauce provides by either dialing back some of the liquid ingredients or bumping up the amount of dry ingredients used.

To swap eggs out for applesauce, start by using a quarter cup of applesauce per egg, and add an extra half teaspoon of baking powder to dry ingredients to compensate for the extra moisture. Should you want to try using chia or flax egg mixtures as egg substitutes in your cake recipes, heed Guy's warning so your cake is a fluffy treat and not a brick-like disappointment. A tablespoon of chia seeds needs to be combined with at least twice the amount of water and left to rest before it can be added to the ingredients, while flax eggs can be made from 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed and double the water. Since these two egg substitutions won't act exactly like how an egg would react in cake recipes, these makeshift approaches may be better left for cookies, muffins, and brownies recipes, instead.