Apple purée
A moisture-and-sugar replacement often recommended for eggs, which replaces the water an egg contributed and none of its other functions.
Also called applesauce (US)
Apple purée is mostly water, with sugars, pectin and acid. Used in place of egg it supplies moisture and a little pectin-based body, which is why it works passably in dense, sweet, chemically leavened bakes and poorly in anything else.
It is the substitution most often misrepresented. It builds no structure, binds only weakly, aerates not at all, and adds both sugar and acid — the acid can react with bicarbonate of soda and change the leavening balance, which is a side effect nobody expects from a substitution presented as neutral. In a formulation that relied on egg for setting, the result is characteristically gummy and sunken rather than merely denser.
What changes if it is left out
The bake loses moisture and some sweetness. Because its contribution is largely water, an equivalent quantity of another liquid recovers most of what it did.
Follows from the composition rather than being an independent claim.
RecordedFollows from evidence recorded elsewhere on BakeHQ
Related
What it does
Hydration
Apple puree is mostly water. That is the honest description of what it contributes when it replaces an egg, and it is why the results are moist and unset rather than merely denser.
Can stand in for
Eggs— for the water an egg contributed, and effectively nothing else
The substitution most often misrepresented as general-purpose. It replaces moisture, adds sugar and acid, binds weakly and aerates not at all — and its acid can react with bicarbonate of soda and shift the leavening balance. Where the egg was setting the crumb, the result is characteristically gummy and sunken.