Saturday, October 24, 2009

Egg Free Almond Flour Bread

A simple adaptation of Elana's Simple Bread recipe:
  1. I replaced the 3 eggs with 1/2 banana (thoroughly mashed), 3 tbsp unsweetened applesauce and 1 tbsp flax meal + 3 tbsp water. Stir the mixture and let it thicken a few minutes.
  2. Instead of 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar, I used 1 tsp gluten free baking powder and 1 tsp ACV. Egg free baking requires a little bit more leavening.
Other than that, the recipe is the same. I just used less sweetener (1 tsp grade B maple syrup vs 1 tbsp agave nectar) and baked the bread a few extra minutes (it all depends on how moist the batter is).

The result is a tasty bread, not too sweet (the banana flavor isn't too strong either), and a loaf that holds well even when slicing (I guess I'm getting better at replacing eggs).

You could use just flax meal if you wanted too. I know flax is good for you because it contains omega 3s and blah blah blah, but it also lowers the body's estrogen level. This may be beneficial for some women but not for others. Plus I already have my omega 3s covered with cod liver...

I am considering camelina seeds as a replacement for flax seeds. Camelina (also called wild or false flax) belongs to the brassica/cabbage/mustard family and has been used much longer than flax (the Celts were using camelina as part of their diet). But it has a higher omega 3 ratio and its oil is more stable than flax's. As for flax, the seeds also become mucilaginous with water but I haven't found any information about phytoestrogens in camelina seeds. The only thing is that the oil is already not widely available, and the seeds are even harder to find.

9 comments:

Kyra Howearth said...

Hi there, just wondering what ACV is? I'm a vegan and was looking for a egg free almond meal bread recipe, so the information you gave in this post was really helpful, thanks! Interesting about the camelina seeds too, I haven't heard of them until now..

Zenseer said...

Hi Kyra,
ACV means apple cider vinegar.

Alchemille

Rachel said...

I am always looking for ways to adapt recipes t make them egg free. I am on the scd diet and can't eat flax. Do you think this would work if I ommited the flax meal completely?

Zenseer said...

Rachel,
I'm familiar with the SCD diet however I don't know how strictly you follow it.
You need a binder and applesauce/bananas won't just do the trick alone unless you make a flat bread.
Why don't you try adding arrowroot/sweet potato flour or bean/lentil flour (ideally made from pre-soaked/spouted, dried and ground legumes)?
Yogurt is also commonly used as an egg substitute but I don't know how good of a binder it'd be (since almond flour isn't starchy/sticky at all).

Anonymous said...

Try mixing unflavored gelatin with 1 cup boiling water. 3 tablespoons = 1 egg

Anonymous said...

Hey just wanted to say I made this using your substitutions and adding alum.free baking powder, cocoa and stevia. Wanted something to go with coffee of the morning. It turned out very good. Will be great with my coffee tomorrow. Thanks.

You could also maybe slice this and bake again and have something scone like.

The Urban Poser said...

What about using chia seeds. Do you find that they work like flax or that they are too 'gummy'?

Zenseer said...

I don't use chia 'cause my husband had an allergic reaction to it so I don't know.

Sue said...

Regarding chia--it works quite well but is a bit more binding than flax. I generally find I need a bit less of it to get the same effect.

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