You decide to spontaneously whip up a recipe and halfway through you realize you're missing a key ingredient: eggs.
There are tons of foods that can easily be substituted for eggs, many of which you'll likely already have in your pantry. Because there are so many to choose from, I tested the most popular egg substitutes in a simple boxed cake mix, so you don't have to.
Whether you have an egg-free diet or you just don't feel like trekking to the store for one ingredient, there's a substitute for you. All of the substitutes I tested can be found at your local grocery store and *bonus* they're cheap.
1. Plain Yogurt
In a cake recipe, one egg is equivalent to 1/4 cup of yogurt. Unsurprisingly, this substitute blended into the cake mix very well and required minimal effort as far as preparation goes. The cake was extremely moist, even more so than a regular cake.
However, since you're using yogurt, I would recommend baking the cake for an extra 1-2 minutes. The overall flavor was identical to regular cake, however, the texture was more gooey and almost brownie-like. But hey, that's not always a bad thing.
2. Tofu
For every one egg, you'll need 1/4 cup of silken tofu. Make sure to blend or whip your tofu, otherwise you'll end up with chunky tofu chocolate cake, and only a very specific type of person would enjoy that. The flavor of this cake was untouched by the tofu, and was similar in texture and moistness to a regular cake. This is truly the perfect egg substitute for anyone with diet restrictions.
3. Bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S)
You'll use about 1/2 of a mashed banana for each egg in the recipe. This cake was easily the most well-liked by my taste-testers (aka my roommates).
There is a slight banana flavor noticeable in the cake, so if you don't like bananas, don't use this substitute. This cake was dense like banana bread but the banana was the best leavening agent out of all of the egg-free substitutes.
4. Avocado
About 1/2 of a mashed, ripe avocado is equivalent to 1 egg. Oh, avocado, I've never been so disappointed in you. This cake was just plain wrong. As long as you puree the avocado, it should easily blend into the batter.
Unfortunately, this cake tasted so much like avocado that it should not be used under any circumstances. As told by my roommates:
"You can tell there's something funky in there."
"It tastes like old guacamole."
5. Applesauce
Use 1/4 cup of applesauce in place of one egg. This cake was a hit with my vegan taste-testers because it tasted the most like a regular cupcake. The cake was extremely moist, but also had that brownie-like consistency similar to the yogurt substitute.
I would recommend bake them 2-3 extra minutes to ensure they're not under-cooked if you're using applesauce. The applesauce substitute made for a very flat cupcake, so add about 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder to the mixture.
Overall, the majority of these egg-free substitutes worked just as well as an egg (R.I.P. avocado cake). Though none of them rose as well as a regular cupcake, they made up for it in moistness and flavor.
So next time you're in a pinch and can't make it to the store, try using the yogurt in the back of your fridge or the bananas wasting away on your counter to create a cake worth bragging about.