Old Eggs = Vegan Cookie Experiment #1

How many times have your brought baked good in to work only to find out that half of your colleagues are vegan? Vegetarian is pretty easy to accomodate, but there is just something about eggs and butter than you cannot easily replace. This weekend I decided to try out some vegan baking. Be on the lookout for additional posts!

Old Eggs & Prior Research

Let’s be perfectly clear, I am talking about baking and not reproduction 🙂 There are definitely references in some comic movies such as “Baby Mama” and “Get Smart” to “old eggs.”

Before this weekend I compiled a list of substitutes for various animal byproducts in an effort to just “replace” ingredients in my yummy baked goods. I also realized that my eggs were well past the expiration date and while they passed the “sink or swim” water test to indicate they were still edible, a month seemed a bit too old to trust, so I decided to dive in and try to make some vegan cookies!

Flax Seed Meal

Seemed to be a recommended replacement for eggs where binding was necessary. Tablespoon and 1/4 water per egg to replace.

Apple Sauce

Sounding more appetizing, 1/4 cup applesauce per egg when binding was not required.

Margarine

Seemed to be easy since I thought it was all vegetable oil. I was shocked to see “contains milk,soy” on the back of the store brand! There was talk about the “Lite” version of Smart Balance, but further research online and on the label revealed that “Palm Oil / Palm Fruit” was an ingredient. Most of us know that products using Palm Oil like Girl Scout Cookies are causing habitat for the Orangutan and other species of that region to be destroyed. Being the Zoo volunteer that I am, I can in no way knowingly consume products containing Palm Oil. So, the suggestion had to be tossed out.

Friday, 20 July 2012

Mission: Gingersnaps

Problematic Ingredients

Margarine
Eggs

Series of Events

Picked up some applesauce to replace eggs and was about to add margarine when I discovered that their was milk in the margarine! AHHH! So, I consulted my handy research page and thought, oh, I can just replace the margarine with applesauce too.

Mixing all the ingredients together, I did not have a very good consistency. In fact, I don’t think any amount of time in the frige or freezer would help my cookies be anything than complete flat blobs. So…I added some flour to help soak up some of the applesauce juice which I believe was the root cause of the issue. Granted there was 2 cups of apple sauce in the recipe to replace the 2 eggs and 1.5 cups of margarine.

They Are Cookies!

Baking commenced and they looked more like molasses cookies when I took them out. To my surprise they were hard to the touch! Success I thought. Taking one bite I discovered they were a bit chewy, and cake like, probably from the extra flour that I tossed in to help get a firmer consistency. Not impressed 🙁 I took them to the National Zoo that next day with the warning that they were experimental cookies. I had a few nice comments, no one complains about free food, but I was not around to check the trash can for partial cookies either.

Saturday, 21 July 2012

Mission: Gingersnaps and Chocolate Chip Cookies

A bit more ambitious to try out a few different combinations since the 100% applesauce route was not the way to go.

Problematic Ingredients

Margarine
Eggs

Series of Events

This time I made 3 batches of cookies trying out different substitutes. Sure, I could have found a vegan recipe online, but would that be fun? Also, if I could find out a general rule of substitution, then I could theoretically take any recipe and turn it vegan! That is much more exciting a prospect.

Gingersnap Batch 2

Substituted eggs with applesauce and found a vegetable spread which did not contain milk.

Results

Not bad. They were pretty flat, and very soft, but actually edible! They had a closer consistency to their non-vegan relatives.

Gingersnap Batch 3

Substituted eggs with flax seed meal/water and found a vegetable spread which did not contain milk.

Results

Not bad. They were pretty flat, and very soft, but actually edible! They had a closer consistency to their non-vegan relatives. I could not tell them apart from the ones with Applesauce in them.

Chocolate Chip Batch 1

Substituted eggs with applesauce and used vegetable shortening to replace the margarine. Also had to get more expensive Girardelli chocolate chips which did not contain milk or milk fat.

Results

Pretty darn good! They were again flat, but quite yummy and stayed together well.

Conclusion

Looks like the vegetable shortening came out in the end as having a harder consistency which helped the cookies stay together better. As much as I prefer the spread as it was lower in fat, those cookies seemed to be almost too soft, but again, I did not try to make the Chocolate Chip with the spread. That will be cookie batch 5 coming up this weekend! You can’t compare apples to oranges 🙂

2012-04-162021-01-26

Doesn’t Pay to Go Green

Saving Green != More $ Green

Going “green” to save the planet does not always put more “green” in your wallet.

Now there are some cases when you can actually save money such as rechargeable AA batteries, but for the majority of recycled products you buy, you actually pay more.

Why is that?

You would think that if products were made from existing products the cost would be cheaper. For example there is no cost for raw materials and in many cases the recycled material is already in the form needed for the recycled product.

Companies are slow to embrace, charging consumers more for the “new” thing.

Not sure it does cost more to produce a recycled product, but I would not doubt it is because companies have not invested in the necessary equipment. This is the reason Hybrid cars are so expensive and take so long to deliver to the customer. There is a bottleneck in some part of the manufacturing process. Hopefully is not on purpose. Did I tell you I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist? 🙂

A local Honda dealership was handing out information sheets showing why is was “not worth going green.” They based it on the cost of the vehicle and available units on the lot, using the current price of fuel and longevity of the rechargeable battery to show that it would not be any cheaper to by a Hybrid Civic over the conventional Civic. This was such a disappointment. How many prospective buyers of a Hybrid were convinced it was not worth it? It comes down to the failure of Honda to meet the demand for the Hybrid Civic and mass produce it at a reasonable cost.

Successful Product Launches?

Here are a few that have made media attention…

Reynolds Wrap introduced a 100% recycled option for aluminum foil. Why did they not replace the existing product? Are people concerned that recycled products are dirty?
Glad recently announced to have reduced the amount of plastic used in ALL of their garbage bags without compromising the product. Great work Glad!
Deer Park announced several years ago now I think, that they reduced the amount of plastic used in their disposable water bottles. Much better, but why not install water dispensers using the trucked in spring water and stop making disposable bottles?
Recycled Batteries have been around for a very very long time. I remember the “yellow” ones, NiCad, from years ago. They were weak and took a very long time to charge. Batteries today home much more power and some even can hold a charge for months unlike the traditional ones which start discharging as soon as you remove them from the battery charger. I would have to say that recycled batteries have personally saved me lots of money over the years, especially now since they are widely produced and the novelty of them has past. Much like the Compact Florescent bulb. At one time very expensive and now very cheap to produce and purchase. True that we have moved on to LED bulbs because they don’t contain mercury, are even more energy efficient, and produce less heat.

Getting Local

So I am from NY, not the city, but upstate. Over the years the number of products that can be recycled had improved. I remember as a child on a few plastics, I think only #2, were recyclable. This may have been due to the rural area I grew up in, or the limited demand for recycled products of the other plastics to not make the collection profitable, but one thing was always great……

5 cent bottle redemption!

Why cannot something so simple be implemented everywhere?

Not only would more people recycle to get back the nickel they spent when they bought the product, but it also reduced the number of recyclables in the trash cans. If you did not want the nickel, there were many others going through recycle bins and trash cans eager to redeem them. Not to say this is idea, but it was a win for the environment and a win for the person struggling to eat on the street. Not to mention countless schools paid for trips with can and bottle drives.

The nations capital

One wonders why DC does not have a bottle redemption, or at least place recycle bins near community trash cans along the streets. Heck, just paint half of them blue, slap a recycle logo on it and just maybe, people would carry that can a block further to recycle it. As it stands now, unless you are in a very limited area around the Mall or Golden Triangle, there are no recycle bins. Even those were just installed within the last few years.

Recycling trucks come down the same streets, there would be little to no additional cost.

While we should not need to “pay” people to recycle, installing bottle redemption machines at local grocery stores would seem to help. They could operate much like a change machine either dispensing cash or a redeemable coupon for money. The crushed output from the machines could then be emptied into the stores recycle bin for recycling.

Why Not?

So my question is…why have the local environmental groups not made progress in this area. It seems like such a basic “need” which would not take much to implement.

2012-03-182021-01-26

4 Years of Bike Commuting

April 2012 will mark the 4th year I have been commuting to work. Here are just a few facts about by bike riding.

~ 8000 Miles

6331 Miles on my Road Bike
1518 Miles on my Cyclocross Bike
???? Miles using CaBi (Capital Bikeshare)

1 Crash

Well, I would not really call it a crash. I was side swiped by a car changing lanes from a stopped position. Being observant of your surroundings at making sure you have an escape route along with learning basic avoidance maneuvers can really help keep you safe.

2 Falls

One was because I decided to drive over a bridge joint in a parallel direction, and the other was because of black ice. The first could have been avoided, but the second, was totally unforeseen and unavoidable.

363 Days a Year

That is an estimate, but I ride my bike practically every day to work and to the National Zoo on Saturday and Air and Space Museum on Sunday. The only days I don’t ride my bike are when it is either raining very hard when I head out in the morning, or if it is very cold with a chance of freezing rain.

Fun Rides

While my main use of a bike have been transportation, I have had a chance to go on some fun / fundraising rides recently.

2011 Air Force Classic Crystal Ride ~63 Miles
2012 WABA VASA Ride ~69 Miles

I am looking at doing the Air Force Classic again this year and have been anticipating open registration for months. While I don’t plan to travel for a Gran Fondo, I am hoping the one that was scheduled for DC in 2011, will actually happen in 2012. I would like to get out in the scenic countryside and enjoy the ride as opposed to staring at a cue sheet dodging cars which tends to happen on rides based in the DC Metro Area like the VASA Ride. The Air Force Classic was on a closed course, but was an 8 lap route which became a little mundane.

Bike Education

Since Dec 2010, I have been teaching adults and children how to ride bikes safely in conjunction with WABA and Georgetown University as a hobby. I need to thank the cranky residents of Georgetown for routing the GU Dupont Circle shuttle buses off local streets onto major roads. The extra time it took to get to work sparked my switch to the bike for commuting and I have never gone back 🙂

2012-03-172021-02-05

Bike Stickers Arrived!!

YEAH!

After daily tracking on Fedex…my stickers finally arrived from California via an online print site.

Design

So I have been telling people for a while now that my bike is a true “natural gas vehicle.” I am more so when consuming products containing lactose. LOL. Okay, that was too much information. Fifty miles per burrito seemed about right.

I went searching for a sticker to that affect that I could put on my bike. I came across one that was pretty plain, but got the point across. They were $2 each with a high shipping charge. While there was a decent discount when I added 50 to my cart, it did not seem worth it since my goal was to hand them out to friends, colleagues, and random bike commuters that I joined waiting for the light to change.

Vehicle Fuel Economy

I modeled my sticker after the one you see on new vehicles at the car dealership to give a little more realism to my idea. I was torn between an Eco-friendly theme and a food inspired one. I was looking to make a small label, about the size of a return address label, which could be easily affixed to a bikes top tube.

More uses

So I was doing some thinking and realized that they can be affixed to skate boards, wheel chairs, those 2 wheeled, now clearance priced Razor Scooters, runners, walkers, and electric vehicles.

Want one?

The bargain shopper I am said, why order 100 when you can order 2500! So I have about 2499 extra ones to give away. Well actually I have about 10,000 total since my sticker is meant to be cut up into quarters to be the right size for a bike top tube which is where I envisioned them going. Kind of like how a new car has a fuel economy sticker on the window at the dealership.

So, if you want one, let me know and I will send you one or two if you have a friend. It would really be cool to see these all over the country / world as I have no monetary motive, just a good sense of humor / environmental vein 🙂

The sticker

Here it is….