Allergy Catering Manual

 

Alternative Ingredients

Although there are alternatives to most ingredients, some work better than others. For example, while it is easy to replace cow’s milk with half a dozen alternatives, egg replacers simply do not work.

With some ingredients (cow’s or goat/sheep milk or butter) you can just do a straight swop, with others (many of the alternative flours) you may need to adjust the amount of liquid in the recipe or the cooking times.

Some other alternatives (coconut milk for cow’s milk for example) work very well but change the flavour of the dish quite markedly - and sometimes for the better !

Always experiment with a new ingredient until you get the hang of how it behaves and reacts.

The following is a sample page from the 'Alternative Ingredients' section

Alternatives to Eggs

There is no viable alternative ingredient that you can use for dishes which are based on eggs (omelettes, soufflés, scrambled egg, meringues etc) as so called egg replacers bear no resemblance to egg and have none of their lifting, setting or emulsifying qualities. So for egg allergic people these dishes are off the menu.

Cakes & Baked Goods:

Raising agents (baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, glucone delta lactone etc) can be substituted in cakes or baked goods where the egg only plays a lifting or setting role e.g. any cake or baked good which has plenty of other textures or flavours. The resulting cake will not be quite as light as if it had egg, but quite acceptable, especially if it includes fruit or nuts.

Raising agents do not work well in baked goods (such as a simple sponge cake) where the egg plays not only a lifting and setting role but provides texture and flavour.

If you need to make egg free sponges there are a number of proprietary gluten/wheat/egg free mixes which make quite reasonable sponge cakes, especially if they are then going to be decorated with other ingredients.

Custards & Creams:

Cornflour and arrowroot can be used to make creams and custards as long as care is taken that they do not become too claggy or floury. They will also be better if well flavoured.

Mayonnaise:

There are quite successful egg free mayonnaises on the market (see Suppliers List)

Pancakes & Batters:

Pancake batter can be made very successfully without eggs - just use the relevant flour and water/appropriate milk. Batters will not hold together as well as if they had egg but are still feasible.

Pasta:

Use any of the dozens of egg free fresh or dried pastas.

 

 

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