HOW TO REPLACE THE BUTTER
Butter is one of the most used food fats in cooking and especially in pastry, but replacing it is not complicated at all.
Also, by replacing the butter you can get lighter and healthier dishes. Most of the alternative ingredients are much more digestible, with a lower saturated fat content, and some are even suitable for vegan or lactose intolerant people.
Oil:
Oil is probably the ingredient that lends itself best to replacing butter.
But perhaps not everyone knows that oil can be used instead of butter in almost all sweet preparations. In fact, you just need to reduce the quantity by 20%, and you will get soft desserts or tasty tarts, all much more digestible. In addition, desserts made with oil keep better and longer!
Just remember to carefully choose the oil to use: extra virgin olive oil is more suitable for savory preparations, seed oil is perfect for sweet ones. That said, nothing prevents you from using a good olive oil, perhaps with a more delicate and fruity taste, even for biscuits, pies and cakes: it's just a matter of taste and preference.
Cream and yogurt:
Among the possible alternatives to butter, for both sweet and savory recipes, there are also fresh cream and yogurt, both lighter than butter and with a more delicate flavor than oil.
With the cream you will obtain soft desserts, which melt in the mouth. With yogurt, on the other hand, you can get much lower calorie dishes, as in 100 g of product yogurt contains 80 calories while butter as many as 700. You can use one or the other for seasoning or whipping.
If you are vegan or lactose intolerant, you can also use vegetable cream or yogurt, such as soy.
In any case, whether you have chosen cream or yogurt, normal or vegetable, you must always increase the quantity by 25%.
Ricotta cheese:
Just like fresh cream, ricotta can also be an excellent substitute for butter, not just for sweet recipes. In particular, you can get fluffy sweets or fragrant biscuits. The proportion depends on the type of ricotta, but in principle you can use the same amount of ricotta for the various preparations.
Vegetable margarine and butter:
If you do not intend to give up the "creaminess" of butter, you may decide to replace it with a vegetable butter, such as margarine or soy butter. The advantage is to keep the same proportion of butter in the preparations.
However, these are ingredients often rich in hydrogenated fats, and therefore not too healthy. Also, if your goal is to avoid lactose, always remember to carefully read the labels of the products you buy, as very often margarine contains possible traces of lactose.
Attention also to the flavor: vegetable butters have, some more or less, a characteristic flavor, from the more delicate one of margarine to the stronger one of butters made from dried fruit, in particular that of peanuts. In principle, you can use margarine in sweet and savory preparations. Vegetable butters, on the other hand, are not suitable for all preparations, but they are certainly perfect for biscuits and pies. As always, it's a matter of taste!
My advice? Always try to buy organic vegetable butters, as they are usually thickened with the addition of lecithin and not by hydrogenation.
Fruit puree:
Perhaps not everyone knows that the creamy texture given by butter can be emulated quite well by the avocado, apple or banana smoothie in many leavened desserts, such as muffins and plumcakes. Also in this case it is possible to keep the same proportion of the butter.
Butter substitution table:
Here is a reference table to help you understand even more easily how to best replace butter in your preparations.
100 g of butter = a
80 g of oil
125 g of cream / yogurt not for sautéing
100 g of margarine / strong flavor vegetable butter
100 g of pureed fruit only in leavened cakes
100 g of cottage cheese
Butter in the international gastronomic culture is synonymous with “sweet preparations”. If you are vegan we are sure that one of the most frequent questions asked by friends and relatives who love cooking is: "But how do you prepare desserts then?". In truth, pastry as well as savory cooking without butter exist, but let's start with order. What is butter? Butter is the result of processing the fat part of the milk of different animals.
The butter, however, can also be from buffalo, goat or even yak, as happens in Tibet where "Bo cha" is prepared with this cream, ie a tea based on yak butter, salt, milk, bicarbonate, leaves of tea and hot water beaten together in a wooden bowl. Butter is made up of about 80% fat, one part water and then lactose and proteins. How to replace butter in sweet and savory dishes. First, it is necessary to clarify that using butter as a condiment is not a very good habit, even if you are not vegan. In fact, butter is rich in cholesterol.
Butter, in your sweet recipes, can be replaced with extra virgin olive oil .
The proportion to follow is : 100 grams of butter are replaced with 80 grams of oil. You can also use corn oil if you consider that the very strong flavor of extra virgin olive oil can cover or contrast with that of your dessert. Butter can also be replaced with soy cream : the latter is less caloric and with a more delicate flavor than oil.
The proportion to follow is the following : for 100 g of butter, 125 g of soy cream are used. It is possible to replace the butter with soy yogurt , here too the proportion is the following: for 100 grams of butter, 125 grams of soy yogurt will be used. You can also replace the butter with soy butter or good quality margarine : these two products are certainly "controversial" as in the first, palm oil is often present which, if not organic, has a very high environmental impact, while margarine may contain powdered milk and is high in fat. It is therefore necessary to buy it after carefully checking the ingredients.