Two Problems with Gluten-Free Vegan Baking

I have been gluten-free for 14 years now and diary-free & egg-free off and on for years, but officially off for the last year, much to my intestinal track's delight.

Most baking relies on flour with gluten, eggs, and some sort of liquid or fat that is usually diary based to create the chemical reactions that are necessary for a delicious, light, nicely risen baked good. In most recipes that are gluten-free, egg-free, and diary-free there are two substitute ingredients that just don't work for me.

1) Egg Replacer. Hello Tapioca. You are fine as boba balls in boba tea. You are fine as pudding. You are extra fine as an ingredient in dim sum wrappers. You suck as an egg replacer.

No matter what I do, be it follow the package directions or recipes or what, everything that I use Egg Replacer in comes out rubbery or hard or both. I have taken to leaving it out when I use a gluten-free baking mix, as the mix usually already includes tapioca, taro root, or arrowroot to help hold everything together.

In normal baking the proteins in the egg mix with the gluten protein in the wheat flour to bind the ingredients together and to help the batter to rise and be light. Egg replacer succeeds at binding the ingredients together but fails at the goal of lightening the batter. Thus rubbery and hard.

2) Agave Syrup. Agave Syrup is very popular in vegan baking recipes as a substitute for both sugar (are animals harmed in the making of sugar?) and the liquid that diary provides. Agave Syrup is 3x sweeter than sugar, is a liquid, and dang it all it gives me the same headache as tequila without the happy margarita part.

I can live without Agave Syrup, as I am not allergic to cane or beet sugars and I have no problems ethically with using either, but the lack of eggs is cramping my baking style, as evidenced by the world's ugliest and most unappetizing pancakes ever.

Finally, yes, I could buy gluten-free baked products at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Mother's Markets, but the only problem is that most of these goods contain either butter (allergy), egg (allergy), or canola oil (really bad allergy).

Back to the baking drawing board I go. I am going to try to make blueberry pancakes tomorrow.