About Eggless Cooking

I’m Madhuram living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA with my husband and my son who is two and a half years old. Although my mother tongue is Telugu, we are convenient with Tamil because we were born and raised in Tamil Nadu. The language we speak is a mixture of both.

I’ve always had interest in cooking. Back in India I used to follow all the cooking shows regardless of language, eagerly look for recipes in magazines be it veg or non veg. Being vegetarian, I used to think maybe I can use cauliflowers/potatoes in a non-veg recipe. But the truth is I didn’t cook as much as I watched the shows. Occasionally I used to try some interesting recipe or cook when my grandmother or mother was not feeling well which was very rare.

AFTER MARRIAGE:
Like many others who come to US from India after their marriage I also packed as much as I can, which included a LOT of books on cooking. But again I didn’t get a chance to experiment all those recipes because my husband was a VERY VERY VERY DIET/HEALTH CONSCIOUS person. He didn’t want anything fried in oil, nothing spicy or salty, nothing very sweet. God that was a tough period to learn a different kind of cooking altogether! So again I was just reading recipes, now from websites. That was the only difference. We didn’t have cable TV connection then, so was not able to watch FOOD TV.

MY NEW LOVE:
We had to move to Canada for a couple of months. There I started watching Food TV regularly, or to tell the truth, I was watching only Food TV. I was so thrilled to see the hosts baking cookies and cakes, breads and muffins. I just fell in love with baking. Until then I did not know what to do with the oven, I was just using it like another kitchen shelf, storing my oversize cooker, Dosa pans etc.

MY EXPERIMENT WITH BAKING:
One day my husband and I were watching an episode in Food TV. Yes my husband also, even though he doesn’t eat much, he likes to watch Food TV. In that episode, the host was preparing potato puffs with puff pastry sheets. My husband told me that I should also try that, and to my surprise he also said that he will go to the store immediately and get the puff pastry and baking sheet and meanwhile I can prepare the potato stuffing. So I prepared the masala and switched on the oven to preheat it. My God, that was a big process because I had kept so many boxes etc in my oven, remember I was using it as a storage only. I had to remove all of them, find a place for it. (Now that I’m using the oven more often, not for baking per se but for preparing the store bought frozen French fries and making pizzas, my mother in law has converted the dishwasher into a storage area, seeing me moving things out each time I want to use the oven) My husband got the cookie sheets made in aluminum foil and the puffs came out very well. Hey I can hear what you guys are telling, this is not baking, it’s just using the oven. Yes I agree, but that was by itself a big deal for me.

Sometime later I bought a baking set because it was on sale. It was just lying idle. I didn’t know from where to start. Because I’ve seen in the Food TV shows, that they were using the big hand mixers etc. I didn’t want to invest in them without having a clue how to use them. So I used to google to see if there were any classes for baking nearby. But found none. Earlier I had bought the Magic Bullet blender and one day I was going through the recipe book given with that. There were some recipes for muffins. The process of preparing the batter was so simple, just put flour, oil etc in the blender’s big jar and pour it in the muffin pan. I wanted to try it, but I had to use eggs. As mentioned earlier being a vegetarian I was hesitant to bring eggs home. (But the secret was I started eating eggs after coming to US, I love Dunkin Donuts’ egg and cheese sandwich very much. Sshhh….. don’t tell my mother.) Then somehow I mustered some courage to buy eggs and try the recipe. I simply followed the instructions and it came out well, but both my husband and myself couldn’t tolerate the smell of egg in the muffins. I don’t know whether it was psychological or something, we didn’t feel like eating it at all.  We do enjoy the pastries bought from the store, we are conscious of the fact that they are made with eggs only, but the idea of bringing it home and baking with them made us uncomfortable. The same happened when I tried chocolate chip cookies also. So I didn’t bake anything later. But I did want to learn to bake and got a book “BAKING FOR DUMMIES”. I did see some eggless recipes in that book for cookies, but I don’t know why I didn’t try them. With a newborn and related pressure I forgot all about this.

BACK TO USA:
We moved back to US again. Once I was googling to find out how to break the Jaggery mounds we get in the Indian store. That time I found a link to Indira’s site. I was really dumbfounded after visiting that site. It was EXCELLENT. There I found a recipe for an eggless cake made with bananas and carrots. I tried it the next day itself and it came out very well. I have tried that cake with so many variations and each time it’s a hit. This rekindled my passion for baking.

MY INSPIRATION:
From Indira’s site I visited lot of other fabulous blogs. Until then I had no idea what blogs were and was not aware of the fact that there were so many other passionate cooks out there. Shilpa’s www.aayisrecipes.com, sunitha’s blog and so many other food blogs inspired me so much that I also wanted to become a part of this delicious world.

So that’s how egglesscooking.com was born.

Back in Canada again, since 2009.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

226 COMMENTS

  1. Madeleine Cornwell

    Hi Madhuram. Thank you for sharing your story. I did not grow up vegetarian and have gone through decades of transition toward healthier eating habits. Now, my husband and I eat/cook vegan at home. It takes commitment and blogs like yours to help us find our way toward delicious vegan cooking. Thank you for your hard work to produce and maintain this site and the countless hours of experimentation. Because we missed cheese so much, we did a lot of experimenting ourselves to find a healthy alternative, and now we have embarked on a new journey of our own line of cheese alternative mixes. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning our new company called GreenFlashFoods.com and now on Shopify. I think since many people have the same struggles as we did, you and your readers may want to know. Thank you so much. Your blueberry muffin recipe was delicious!

    • Madhuram

      That’s awesome, Madeline! I will check your website. Best wishes with your venture!

  2. Vani

    Hi Maduram, greetings!

    Can you pls let me know the difference between cake flour and all purpose flour?
    I saw one recipe with cake flour from ur blog and just wondering how it differes?.

    Pls clarify.

    Regards
    Vani

    • Madhuram

      Hi Vani. Cake flour is milled from softer wheat and hence it has less gluten content making it suitable for delicate cakes and pastries. Cakes made using cake flour has a lighter texture than made with all-purpose flour.

  3. bhawna

    hi .. madhuram
    your eggless baking blog really inspires me. i wanted to know from where did you learn eggless baking as i am searching to do certification course in eggless baking and decoration here in chicago(USA) so that i can develope my skills. i had asked you same question sometime time back but did not hear from you. your guidance will really help me in chasing my dream.
    thankyou in advance

  4. Jyoti Jain

    Hello Mudhuram,
    I also love baking , I often bake , I just read your blogs they are amazing, Some of the recipes within eggless section , I will try ones. Keep posting the good recipes & We will follow you 🙂

    • Madhuram

      Thank you very much, Jyoti.

  5. Anna

    Madhuram,
    Thanks for this great website! I don’t eat a lot of eggs, mostly just bake with them. I buy a carton and use a few, then they just sit in the fridge until I eventually use them all. So I was really excited to find this site. Thanks for the conversion chart. I knew about bananas, applesauce and flax seeds as substitutes but was excited to see the other substitutes. I can’t wait to try some of these great looking recipes. Keep up the great work!

    • Madhuram

      You’re very welcome, Anna. Thank you very much for taking the time to leave a detailed feedback.

  6. tereza

    Hi Madhuram,
    I live in Taiwan where cup measurements are different from US/Canada.
    If you have time, please could you list all the ingredients for you eggless vanilla cake in grams/ml so I can accurately reproduce your amazing looking cake..!!!
    Thanks,
    Tereza

    • Madhuram

      Tereza please check the baking measurement page for various conversion tables to help you change the measurements accordingly.

 
Thank you for sharing. Like us to stay in touch with the latest updates from Eggless Cooking.