Have you ever been baking for an important event or meal and partway through the process found out that you don’t have the ingredients you need, or you don’t have enough of something? This scenario has happened to nearly everyone who does any baking at home, and it’s frustrating. Rather than wasting time and money by running out to purchase ingredients in the middle of your baking project, consider trying a substitute.
In many cases, an ingredient has a chemical function in a baked good, and substitutions will only work if they can perform the same chemical function or reaction as the original. This is often the case with ingredients like fats, flour, sugar, and leavening, such as baking soda. In other cases, the ingredient only adds flavor to the baked product. In these cases, substitutions might be easier to find or unnecessary altogether in order to have success, but the flavor of the finished product will be altered.
In addition to knowing some basic substitutions that you can use in your baking, you should also have an understanding of various measurement and temperature conversions, such as ounce to cup conversions or how to change Celcius into Fahrenheit.
Here are some of the easy substitutions you can try when you are baking:
Baking Powder
If you run out of baking powder when you are cooking, it is helpful to know what baking powder does. The main ingredient in baking powder is sodium bicarbonate or baking soda. When mixed with an acid, baking soda creates a chemical reaction that can help baked goods to rise. Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda and an acid, usually cream of tartar. Baking powder is useful in recipes that don’t have enough acid in them to activate the chemical reaction.
Since baking powder is a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar, it is easy to substitute as long as you have these ingredients. Simply mix 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda with 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar to replace 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is a fermented milk. Traditionally it was the product of separating fermented cream to make butter, which is where the name comes from. Today most buttermilk is cultured milk made specifically to be sold as buttermilk. It is useful in baking mostly for its higher acidic content compared with regular milk. This is why you will often see buttermilk used in recipes that require a lot of leavening, such as buttermilk biscuits and pancakes.
When the acidic buttermilk combines with sodium bicarbonate in baking soda or baking powder, the chemical reaction creates a lot of bubbles in the baked goods, helping your biscuits and pancakes get fluffy and delicious. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, it is easy to re-create the chemical reaction by using 1 cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice as a substitute for each cup of buttermilk. The vinegar or lemon juice will add the extra acid needed in the recipe.
Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is darker and more flavorful than white sugar. It also contains more moisture. In most recipes, you can simply use a cup of white sugar as a substitute for brown sugar. You might notice a slight difference in texture, but the flavor and sweetness of the baked item should be the same. If you want to preserve the texture of the product, try using 1 cup of granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon of molasses or pancake syrup to replace each cup of brown sugar.
Chocolate Chips
Chocolate chips have no chemical or structural part of baked goods and are strictly a flavor component. This means you can replace them with any other flavor component that makes sense in your situation. Try using a chopped-up chocolate bar or add chopped nuts, raisins, or dried fruit as a substitute.
Eggs
Eggs are complicated baking ingredients that have important chemical contributions to the final product. Eggs act as an additional leavening (raising) agent in many recipes. They also add fat, protein, and moisture, and act as an emulsifier, helping to combine the fats and the liquids in the mix. Satisfactory results might require some guesswork and experimentation. One good egg substitute in baking is to replace each egg with ¼ cup of applesauce or mashed banana. This won’t provide any additional leavening, but it will add moisture and help to preserve the texture of the product.
A more scientifically accurate substitute for eggs is to replace each egg with 2 tablespoons of water, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil. This adds moisture, leavening, and fat to help replace the missing egg. Finally, consider trying a simple replacement made of carbonated water. All you have to do is add ¼ cup of carbonated water in place of each egg.
Milk
Milk adds fat, flavor, and sweetness to recipes. If you run out of milk when you are baking, try using a milk product as a replacement, such as sour cream, half and half, or yogurt. You may need to use some water with these substitutes to get the needed texture. For example, you might want to try ¾ of a cup of cream and ¼ of a cup of water in place of each cup of milk. You can also use evaporated milk or powdered milk to replace regular milk when you are baking. Evaporated milk is very rich, so it should be diluted with water. You can also use any type of milk as a substitute, such as almond, soy, or coconut milk.
Vanilla Extract
Use other flavorings like almond extract, maple syrup, or honey as a substitute. Since vanilla is not an integral chemical component in baking, you don’t have to worry about the product being significantly different without this flavoring. However, in recipes where the vanilla is important in the flavor, such as vanilla cookies, the taste can be significantly different without a flavoring or with a substitute.
Vegetable Oil
Use melted butter, margarine, or coconut oil as a substitute in the same amount as vegetable oil. You can also consider trying a butter or oil alternative, such as applesauce, banana, or avocado. How effective these substitutes are will depend on the kind of baking you are doing and how integral the fat is to the recipe. For example, you might not want to substitute a lower-fat alternative such as applesauce or margarine in a cookie recipe because fat is an important part of the baking process for cookies. However, using the same substitutes in a muffin or quick bread recipe is often successful.
Final Thoughts
The key to successfully substituting or changing recipes is understanding the different functions of the various ingredients and the ways in which they work together to create the finished product. Once you know something about why each ingredient is included, you will be able to experiment with different substitutions and find the ones that are the most effective in your situation and recipe.