With eggs in short supply and the cost of butter amongst other staple ingredients rocketing in the last year, we understand that baking at home has got a little more difficult.
To help with this, the Easy Peasy Baking Campaign are sharing their handy guide to substituting ingredients that offer alternatives for when you’re trying to stick to a budget or making use of what’s already in the cupboards.
Self-Raising Flour: Did you know you can make your own self-raising flour at home? It’s really simple, just combine baking powder with plain flour. Use the quantities of 1 tsp to every 100g flour for the best results.
Buttermilk: You can also make your own buttermilk at home by adding lemon juice or white vinegar to milk and letting stand for five minutes! Use the ratio 1 tbsp of vinegar/lemon juice to 235ml of milk.
Egg: Empty egg shelves in the supermarket? You can switch out egg for flax seeds, aquafaba or chia seeds. If using flax seeds, combine 1 tbsp flax seeds with 3 tbsp water and let it stand for five minutes – this is known as a ‘flax egg’. For aquafaba, use 3 tbsp for the equivalent of 1 large egg, for chia seeds, use 1 tbsp chia seeds and 2.5 tbsp water for the equivalent of one egg.
Butter: You can swap out butter for apple sauce, avocado, mashed banana, oil or nut butter, depending on what you have available. You will need to make sure whatever you’re swapping it for will work with the flavour of your cake; try apple sauce in carrot cake, avocado in chocolate cake, oil in light flavoured sponges like vanilla or Victoria sponge and nut butters in cookies.
Brown Sugar: If your recipe calls for brown sugar but you only have granulated sugar in the cupboard, you can drizzle in 1 tbsp of black treacle to every 200g of granulated sugar for light brown sugar and 2tbsp of black treacle to every 200g of granulated sugar for dark brown sugar.
Baking Paper: Out of baking paper? Simply swap in aluminium foil for lining cake tins or baking trays!
Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda): You can substitute bicarbonate of soda with baking powder at a ratio of ¼ tsp of baking soda to1 tsp of baking powder. Baking soda is much stronger than baking powder so be careful not to get mixed up as too much baking soda can cause a metallic taste in your bakes!
Honey: If you’re out of honey but have either maple syrup or agave in the cupboard why not switch them out? These are interchangeable and can be swapped in for each other in most bakes.