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I am about to cook a cake.

I have bought the cake mix. Now, in the instructions, it says that I have to mix it with the vegetable oil and add egg. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I do not eat egg.

So, what else can I add instead of egg which will ensure the consistency?

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    related : What can I use to replace eggs in the recipe?
    – Joe
    Dec 12, 2010 at 14:25
  • There is also cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/4192/…. This appears to be a duplicate.
    – Bob
    Dec 12, 2010 at 19:46
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    I'm not sure if it makes sense to close this as a dupe. The previous question was restricted to vegan substitutes (which would invalidate my answer) and also didn't specify the context (recipe) requiring the substitution, so the answers were all over the map.
    – Aaronut
    Dec 13, 2010 at 15:03

3 Answers 3

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Eggs are added to a cake primarily to help it rise, and to a limited extent to improve the moistness. The lecithin in the yolk also has emulsifying properties. For cakes, commercial egg replacers such as Ener-G will usually do the job nicely.

There's also a dairy product called QimiQ that's used in all manner of recipes to substitute for eggs, especially when a recipe needs raw eggs. It will also work well for cakes, although the substitution tends to be a little more involved. Also, it's probably harder to obtain.

I wouldn't substitute anything else in a cake. I've heard of people substituting all manner of things in other baked goods like cookies, but with a cake, you really need it to rise and you need the wet ingredients to bind together with the fats, and the only single "common" ingredient that will do that is either egg or a commercial egg substitute.

If you're literally about to bake this, as in you've got all your other ingredients already sitting in mixing bowls, and need to substitute the eggs with common ingredients you already have in your fridge or pantry, then I'm afraid you may have wasted your time (and your other ingredients). But maybe somebody else will have some suggestions - guess it can't hurt to wait, given the alternative.

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  • Thanks! And, not, I am not literally about to bake this. I have just bought the ingredients and am reading the instructions.
    – Kanini
    Dec 12, 2010 at 2:51
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    The Ener-G replacer works in some cake recipes but not others I find. I tend to use that particular egg replacer more in egg white replacement, it's good in things like cheesecake mixture, meringue topping, etc. QimiQ is quite a good idea, providing the person eats dairy of course.
    – Orbling
    Dec 12, 2010 at 6:53
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    @Orbling: No substitution is perfect. I wouldn't use Ener-G if I didn't have to, but aside from QimiQ (which, as you've noted, isn't helpful for vegans) I can't think of anything better. With Ener-G you'll probably end up with a cake that's less rich and more crumbly, which you can partially compensate for by increasing the amount of fat. But at least it'll still be a cake!
    – Aaronut
    Dec 12, 2010 at 14:52
  • Granted. There are some other cake replacers that sit better in certain circumstances, I find soya flour tends to be good, blended through the flour, with extra milk (soya or otherwise) for liquid, about 20ml extra per "egg".
    – Orbling
    Dec 12, 2010 at 15:03
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I asked a similar question a few days ago. I learned that depending on the kind of cake you can sometimes sub-in pureed fruit. I recently made the cake with 1/4 cup of pureed pumpkin per egg and triple the original quantity of baking powder. This changed the flavour, of course, and made the cake much moister (it was a fairly hard bundt cake before, not so hard after). But it tasted good. (Better than the original, IMO)

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  • +1 just for the line "Better than the original, IMO". After all, that is what matters finally!
    – Kanini
    Dec 25, 2010 at 12:53
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I'd probably skip the boxed mix and take a look at some vegan cake recipes. I've tried a couple of baked goods recipes from Veganomicon that came out amazingly well. A quick search turns up some simple looking recipes ( http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/vegan-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx ).

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