Shaan Stevens -Baking Cakes Without Butter
Shaan Stevens-Butter is a main ingredient in almost all traditional baking recipes, used for breads, brownies, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, quick breads and just about everything else, and most dairy-free recipes will use either oil, soy margarine or shortening to stand in for butter in a given recipe, sometimes cutting down the fat with pureed fruits such as apples, bananas or dates. For health reasons, many people prefer to use liquid oils such as canola and olive oil in place of butter for dairy-free baking, and while in many cases this will still produce fabulous results, it is also often the case that it cannot stand in for butter on its own.
So, when is it okay to use oil, and when is it better to use margarine and shortening?
First of all, to understand how to properly substitute for butter, it is important to have an understanding of how it functions in various baking recipes. In most recipes for cakes, cupcakes, and quick breads, the process of creaming butter with granulated sugar is extremely important to achieving the even-rising, rich, spongy texture that is so definitive of these products. It is during the 3-5 minutes of beating the sugar into the butter until it is "fluffy" that the sugar granules cut into the butter and aerate the dense fat to give cakes a rich texture and flavor that will also rise.
Baking Cakes Without Butter
It is because of this "creaming" step that using oil alone in place of butter for cakes and cupcakes instead of margarine or shortening can become problematic. Oils generally work best in recipes that use liquid sugars such as honey, maple syrup, molasses or other syrups along with baking agents, another solid fat like ground nuts and some sort of emulsifying ingredient such as eggs or egg substitutes, like in this like in this dairy-free carrot cake that uses a combination of ground nuts, oil, egg whites and purreed fruit to achieve both moisure and lift, without sacrificing texture. Separating eggs, beating the yolks with the sugar or sweetener, and then folding the egg whites into the other ingredients is another great way to give your oil-based cakes and quick breads both richness and lift and allows you to bake without using margarine or shortening.
It is often the case that oil-based vegan and dairy-free cakes that do not use eggs seem a little dense or lack the melt-in-your mouth richness of those made with butter, but this problem can be remedied by combining oil with some sort of solid fat, such as ground nuts or chocolate. This dairy-free devils food cake recipe, for example, uses melted dairy-free chocolate, oil and soy yogurt along with dry ingredients, and thus has ample sweetness and body while still remaining moist and rich. It achieves its rise by using the combination of baking agents and soy yogurt, and by using the chocolate along with the oil and a little
So, when is it okay to use oil, and when is it better to use margarine and shortening?
First of all, to understand how to properly substitute for butter, it is important to have an understanding of how it functions in various baking recipes. In most recipes for cakes, cupcakes, and quick breads, the process of creaming butter with granulated sugar is extremely important to achieving the even-rising, rich, spongy texture that is so definitive of these products. It is during the 3-5 minutes of beating the sugar into the butter until it is "fluffy" that the sugar granules cut into the butter and aerate the dense fat to give cakes a rich texture and flavor that will also rise.
Baking Cakes Without Butter
It is because of this "creaming" step that using oil alone in place of butter for cakes and cupcakes instead of margarine or shortening can become problematic. Oils generally work best in recipes that use liquid sugars such as honey, maple syrup, molasses or other syrups along with baking agents, another solid fat like ground nuts and some sort of emulsifying ingredient such as eggs or egg substitutes, like in this like in this dairy-free carrot cake that uses a combination of ground nuts, oil, egg whites and purreed fruit to achieve both moisure and lift, without sacrificing texture. Separating eggs, beating the yolks with the sugar or sweetener, and then folding the egg whites into the other ingredients is another great way to give your oil-based cakes and quick breads both richness and lift and allows you to bake without using margarine or shortening.
It is often the case that oil-based vegan and dairy-free cakes that do not use eggs seem a little dense or lack the melt-in-your mouth richness of those made with butter, but this problem can be remedied by combining oil with some sort of solid fat, such as ground nuts or chocolate. This dairy-free devils food cake recipe, for example, uses melted dairy-free chocolate, oil and soy yogurt along with dry ingredients, and thus has ample sweetness and body while still remaining moist and rich. It achieves its rise by using the combination of baking agents and soy yogurt, and by using the chocolate along with the oil and a little