Baking - adapting recipes to vegan

[snowblight]

Is it something that's easy to do? For example I was looking at a muffin recipe the other day which includes cheese and one egg and some milk whisked together. I'm assuming I could just swap the cheese for vegan cheese and the milk for oat milk but what about the egg?

Eggs are used to add moisture, lift, structure and to help the ingredients bind together. Different egg replacers perform different functions. There are some very good vegan eggs available, such as Vegg or Vegan Egg which are powders you mix with water to get a vegan whisked egg. Normally one heaped teaspoon is the equivalent of one egg.
I’ve seen some recipes which replace eggs with vinegar and baking soda. To replace 1 egg, mix 1 tablespoon of vinegar(e.g. apple cider) with 1 teaspoon of baking soda. This replacer is perfect for light and airy cakes and cupcakes!You could also use white vinegar but I find the tangy tinge from the cider vinegar adds depth of flavour especially to vanilla bakes and pancakes.
Bananas are also a brilliant egg substitute. You only need around half a small bananato replace one egg, and most recipes will require such a small quantity that the bananas won’t give any unwanted flavour. Apple sauce is another trick when it comes to taking the place of eggs in your recipes. For savoury bakes, use tomato purée.
A lot of recipes use a neutral plant-based oil to replace butter and add moisture. Use 90ml olive oil for every 225g of butter in a recipe. You can use it to grease pans as well. For margarine, Stork baking blocks (not the softer spread as that's not dairy free) and Trex are what you’ll find in my fridge.
Unsweetened soya milk is best used in savoury cooking and baking because it curdles well for use in baking mixes. Oat milk is versatile and you can use it in both sweet and savoury recipes. I wouldn’t use oat milk in a custard or sweet/savoury sauce because the texture can sometimes be a little chalky.

A lot of recipes I have use a chia egg or a flax egg. It works very well for making anyway. It's 1tbsp of ground flax or chia mixed with 3tbsp of water. Mix & leave sit for 15mins before using.

Thanks. I used cider vinegar recently for a vegan chocolate cake which turned out pretty well. It even rose better than non-vegan ones I've made.

Vegan cheese doesn’t behave like dairy cheese when cooked in my experience. It tends to remain fairly solid. I’d opt for other sources of protein instead (mushrooms maybe?) if you want savoury.

A lot of traditional muffin recipes don’t use milk or butter anyway, using vegetable oil instead. You can use vinegar and baking powder to get the raising agent effect of eggs.

I noticed the other day that vegan cheese didn't seem to melt very quickly.

When baking biscuits or shortbread , keep in mind that real eggs also give colour, so vegan biscuits will be very white unless you add a bit of yellow by adding a bit of curry powder or less than a drop of yellow colorant

Aquafaba* is a good egg substitute. I've used it for pancakes and made meringue with it.
*Chickpea juice. About 1tbsp = 1 egg

I use the yeast flakes for a cheesy flavour in white sauces, plus with breadcrumbs as a topping. (they're good bec ause they have the B12 vitamin in them) you could use marmite instead but it has wheat in it. I use rice flour instead of normal. Also I use veg stock rather than soya milk in a cauliflour or macaroni 'cheese'.

I find that ground linseeds make a good egg substitute in cakes or puddings but I do use more than one tabsp. and I use very hot water to soak , then blend it.

thedevil I'm low sugar have you ever made savouries with the aquafaba or does it have to have a lot of sugar in it to stay stiff ? (IYSWIM)

Used it in nut loaf ppeat and also in pancakes made without any sugar.

That's interesting thanks, how long do you whisk it for? using an electric blender or a hand held electric whisk? Doesn't it collapse like eggwhites?