Half-Failed Experiment

I've recently become intrigued with finding substitutes for eggs in baking.  This curiosity has been piqued by two factors: guilt and money. The guilt stems from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's a great book that changed the way I see food, and also made me feel horrible for layer hens that are trapped in cages.  I won't go into the details of why I feel so bad for them, but I feel really bad for them. I am fine eating regular eggs that someone else buys, and I manage quite easily to not think about the chickens. But when I am shopping and I get the normal eggs in the cart, I am permeated by guilt as I inevitably envision what I read about in that book. And suddenly the normal cheap eggs seem like they actually cost an awful lot.

So now we get cage-free eggs, most often through our CSA, which leads us to factor two: the money. Cage-free eggs cost more. Kind of a lot more. As a result, I prefer to eat them as eggs rather than use them as, say, binding/leavening in a quick bread.  I pretend I get more out of them this way. (These eggs are easier to separate, and the colors of the yolks change based on the diet of the chickens! Fascinating!) When I read The Hobbit in the eighth grade, I had no idea how right Bilbo really was in that riddle competition. Inside an egg is golden treasure - expensive golden treasure - that goes into my baked goods.  I think of this and cringe every time I crack an egg into a mixing bowl.      

I started researching egg substitutes, hoping that the vegan baking trend could give me some guidance. I came upon ground flax seed. Mixed with water, it makes a good substitute, I read. And so healthy too, I thought, all those Omegas, even though I have no idea what Omegas do. So I tried it in banana bread. Oh my, success! So I tried it in brownies. Epic failure!

Well, half an epic failure. They were absolutely delicious! But they were rock solid. Let me reiterate: Rock. Solid. Steve and I could tell something was amiss with the brownies when they were molten after thirty minutes of baking and refused to set until forty-five minutes in the oven. Before we realized the magnitude of the disaster, we took the brownies over to Kaylen and Pete's apartment to share with some friends enjoying a game night.

I slid a knife into the brownies and they cracked. Yikes. Steve explained the situation and, lo and behold, a couple there had recently tried the same experiment.  Their brownies were of the molten chocolate disaster persuasion, they explained. Hm, I thought as I gnawed on a brownie that could have been used as liner for a bulletproof vest. What went wrong?

I decided I had no idea. This is why I am a musician and not a scientist.