One of my favorite weekend activities is going to the local farmer’s market to get ingredients to make food for the week. I’m a big fan of farm fresh chicken eggs and typically try to get them at the market. Unfortunately the last two weeks none of the vendors has had them. I was really bummed about it this week because I really want to make a tart and that typically works better with farm fresh eggs.
One of my regular egg vendors offered an alternative – duck eggs. He explained he had WAY too many this week and was willing to “cut me a deal” on a dozen. So I did a quick Google search and found out that some pastry chef’s actually prefer duck eggs . Furthermore because of some subtle differences between them and chicken eggs they actually make for a better result when doing gluten free baking.
Apparently duck eggs have more protein and this helps bind the pastries together. Using them in gluten free recipes results in a lighter, fluffier product which has a texture more similar to typical gluten baked goods. Texture has been my biggest complaint with the gluten free cookies and bars I’ve created. They are too crunchy and don’t have the “bite” of a normal cookie/bar.
So I came home with a dozen and decided to give them a try in some gluten free recipes. I used them in a standard cookie recipe and the dough held together better which I thought was really great.
Then I used them in three recipes which used gluten free flour and they seemed to fix the texture issues with my gluten free cookies. So I’ll be headed back to get more next time I have to make GF things for my co-worker treats.