Baking egg-free has its fair share of challenges, but it’s not impossible! After many years of eggless baking, I have created this guide to eggless baking to help you get great results every time you want to bake egg-free desserts.

closeup of a eggless strawberry cake with text overlay.

Beginner’s Guide to Egg-Free Baking

Baking egg-free has its fair share of challenges. From being too dry, or not rising, or too dense, or just plain not tasting very good, it can be frustrating to get that perfect eggless dessert—that is why I decided to put together this Guide to Eggless Baking.

Needing to bake without eggs can have many reasons:

  • Egg allergy
  • Egg intolerance
  • Lifestyle choice
  • Or you simply ran out of eggs (it happens more than you think)

In my case, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with an egg allergy at a very young age. That was a shock to our family. There are so many things that have eggs. I had no idea what I was going to do.

That’s when my adventure of cooking and baking without eggs began.

If you are looking for more tips, tricks, and delicious eggless recipes, check out the cookbook I published. It’s all about eggless baking.

two kids with their mom decorating egg-free cupcakes.

Let me ask:

How Would It Feel to Make Delicious And Perfect Eggless Baked Goods Every Time?

It’s possible!

But I totally get you…Baking sweet, delicious treats can be a daunting and frustrating task when you have to do it without eggs, but don’t worry! I’ve got you covered.

Throughout the years, I have developed many delicious eggless recipes. I put all my love, passion, and focus into every recipe I create. I care deeply about making every recipe the best it can be, which is why I test my recipes ten times over before I’m satisfied. 

So, before we dive headfirst into all things eggless, let’s start from the beginning!

What Do Eggs Do in A Recipe?

Eggs add structure, leavening, moisture, color, and flavor to our baked goods. However, they are multitasking machines. That is why it can be challenging to replace eggs in a recipe.

The Same Egg Substitute Won’t Work Well for All Recipes

Maybe one day, you used applesauce to replace eggs in a cake recipe, which turned out great. Well, unfortunately, the same applesauce won’t work if you want to make bread, cookies, or even another cake recipe with different ratios of ingredients.

I know why eggless baking has to be so complicated. UGH!

Baking is a science, and it is definitely a chemically based process. In any baking recipe, every ingredient has a purpose.

However, baking without eggs is not impossible; we just need to find the perfect ratios and combination of ingredients.

Maybe you have never baked an eggless dessert before, or perhaps you’re a Suzy Homemaker. Either way, I have some basic guidelines to help you get great results every time you want to bake egg-free desserts. 

Let me share some eggless baking tips I’ve learned over the years.

Here is my Beginner’s Guide to Eggless Baking

1 – Read and Follow the Recipe

Don’t sabotage your time, effort, and money. I’m guilty of this, too! Sometimes, I’m in a rush, and I don’t take the time to read the recipe carefully.

This might sound obvious, right? But reading the recipe through and following it exactly is the most important baking tip you’ll ever hear/read.

2 – Measure Ingredients Correctly

Baking is not very forgiving. The difference between a recipe success and a recipe failure could lie in adding a little too much, or a little bit less, of one of the ingredients. 

The number one problem most home bakers, like myself, have is not measuring ingredients correctly. 

For example, flour.

Did you know that if you dip a measuring cup directly into the flour bin, you get up to 25% more flour? 

The right way to measure flour is to use a spoon to scoop the flour into the measuring cup, and then I use a straight-edged knife to level the flour across the measuring cup.

Even better…

Use a kitchen scale!

a women measuring flour with a kitchen scale.

3 – Don’t Make Substitutions 

It can be tempting to substitute the ingredients in a recipe based on what you have at home, but the results? Often a disaster on a plate. I do not recommend doing this unless the recipe suggests suitable alternatives. 

4 – Use Ingredients At Room Temperature

This simple baking tip is often overlooked. Bakers take it lightly and pour ingredients right out of their refrigerators. Well, if you want a better texture and light, puffy bites, quit it! The results will pleasantly surprise you. 

There are scientific reasons behind this advice: When butter or milk is at room temperature, it emulsifies to capture air. Then, the trapped air bubbles grow with the heat in the oven, achieving a bakery-worthy, fluffy texture in your cakes and cupcakes.

When I call for “softened” butter, it means the stick of butter will easily bend without breaking and will give slightly when pressed. To soften butter, let the refrigerated butter sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes; cut the butter into pieces to speed up the process. If you are short on time, you can place the cold butter in a resealable plastic bag and pound it with a rolling pin until it reaches the desired temperature (65ºF to 67ºF / 18ºC to 20ºC).

5 – Don’t Overbeat the Batter!

What happens when you overmix the batter, particularly when it is eggless?

Overbeating gives your cake and cupcakes a tough texture because all the air gets deflated. In addition, by over-mixing the batter, you are also overdeveloping the gluten.

Mix just until you’ve evenly distributed the ingredients throughout the batter. Use a plastic spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl, and don’t forget to scrape the bottom of the bowl for any pockets of flour or other ingredients.

stand mixer mixing eggless cake batter.

6 – Bake The Batter As Soon As It Is Ready

Once the dry ingredients make contact with the wet ingredients, the rising agent becomes activated. Leaving it out for a long time causes the batter/dough to begin deflating.

woman putting a baking tray with eggless cookie dough in the oven.

7 – Don’t Open the Oven Until the Baked Good Has Set

It can be super tempting to open the oven every few minutes to check on your cake. For the sake of baking a perfectly puffy cake, don’t—at least not during the first two-thirds of the total baking time.

Each time you open the oven door, you let out some heat, causing the temperature inside to drop. Unfortunately, this will also lead the rising cake to sink because the cake’s interior will not get time to rise and set properly.

So, what’s the takeaway idea?

  • Leave the oven closed until the minimum time stated in the recipe. 
  • If you have to check on your cake before it’s ready, do so by pulling the rack out instead of removing the whole cake from the oven.

8 – Know Your Oven

Every oven is different, so baking times always have to be taken with a grain of salt! Unless you have a new or regularly calibrated oven, its temperature is likely inaccurate. Because of this, your baking time can vary, and an inaccurate oven can ruin your baked goods if you don’t adjust accordingly. 

Here are some tips to help avoid oven-temp issues: 

  • Place an oven thermometer in your oven so you can read the inside temperature in real-time.
  • Preheat the oven at least 15 minutes before you get started to give it plenty of time to reach the ideal recipe temperature.
woman removing a baking tray from  oven.

When it comes to eggless baking, it pays off to be a perfectionist. Hopefully, this Guide to Eggless Baking is helpful to you, and these baking tips will help you become an eggless baking master.

Check out my Eggless Baking F.A.Qs section.

What are your eggless baking tips?

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12 Comments

  1. I’m excited to try the recipe! Thank you for your thoughtful tips. I am new to eggless cooking and baking, but I’ve been encouraged by my (beginner’s) results. I’m curious about your prompt for Venezuelan recipes. I’ve actually been hunting a Brazilian recipe – there are many variations on a traditional Brazilan breakfast/dessert cake of cornmeal & guava (Goiabada or Guava Cake). Usually filled with guava paste, sometimes topped with either a guava sauce or coconut sauce, the cornbread can be more like a cake or more like bread, depending. Would love your take on it!

    1. Hello Amy! Thanks so much for stopping by =) I was born in Venezuela so I cook/bake Venezuelan recipes all the time. I don’t have much experience with Brazilian cuisine, but I know it’s delicious too. I hope my recipes inspire you to continue baking and cooking. Please make sure to reach out if you have any questions or special requests. I am happy to help!

  2. I have been frantically searching online – trying to find out what exactly eggs do within recipes. That’s because I made an icebox-cookie recipe which called for yolks-only. But it has been hard to marbelize them following the demo on youtube wherein the lady was marblizing red-velvet marble cookies. Unlike her, in my case the dough is falling apart. That’s so horribly frustrating (because its for the purpose of making button-cookies, but if the section between the holes crumble, then its useless trying to thread my organza ribbon thru for a party).

    So i’ve been wondering if adding the egg-whites would help remedy it so it shouldnt fall apart. I couldn’t find the answer to my Q after lots and lots of research. I just now typed the keywords eggless icebox cookies / egg-free icebox cookies / eggless refrigerator cookies / egg-free refrigerator cookies. All in the hope of finding out what precisely can keep buttonholes in button-cookies intact.

    I still don’t know the answer.

    1. Hello Inquirer! Eggs have multiple functions in a recipe; they provide leavening, binding, and aeration and contribute to texture, flavor, color, and aroma. The egg’s fat gives baked goods extra-rich flavor and a velvety texture. That is exactly why they are so difficult to replace in a recipe. The reason your cookie dough is falling apart is probably that an ingredient was mismeasured. Too much or too little of an ingredient makes a big difference in the outcome. Hope this help!

  3. 5 stars
    Thank you so much for your recipes. My daughter, who has a severe egg allergy, has been able to have treats that taste good. She had never had lemon loaf or cheesecake brownies before I found you. We can make baked goods that everyone will eat. Please keep up the blog.

    1. Hello Jane! Thanks so much for trying my recipes and taking the time to come back and let me know. I hope my recipes inspire you to continue baking. Please make sure to reach out if you have any questions or special requests. I am happy to help!

  4. 5 stars
    I wish I would have done more Googling before I made a disastrous loaf of zucchini bread a few months back! If I had, I would have found your wonderful website and eggless recipes! I never appreciated how complex eggless backing could be, and I so appreciate your guide as my son was recently diagnosed with an egg allergy. Thank you for all that you do!

    1. Hello Brittney! I am glad you are here =) I hope my recipes inspire you to continue baking. Please make sure to reach out if you have any questions or special requests. I am happy to help!

  5. 5 stars
    Thank you for being a great resource for eggless recipes! I love baking and my son’s egg allergy really threw me for a loop in the beginning. I’m so glad I found your site and all your recipes. This guide is very helpful, especially remembering to read the recipe in full before starting 😊

    1. Hello Ann! So sorry about your son’s allergy. Food allergies suck! 😞 Baking without eggs can be intimidating, but I’ve got you covered. I hope my recipes inspire you to continue baking. Please make sure to reach out of you have any questions or special requests. I am happy to help! 🙂 Stay safe and take care of yourself and your loved ones. xo

  6. I’m so happy you’ve posted this, this will definitely help me improve my eggless baking skill.
    Love all your recipes, they always come out perfect! 🙂

    1. Hello Yumma! I hope my recipes inspire you to continue baking. Please make sure to reach out of you have any questions or special requests. I am happy to help! 🙂