I’ve been so fascinated with vegan baking lately; its fun to try and figure out how to cut the fat and calories while adding protein and fiber to your favorite cookies, breads, and desserts… and, of course, still have them taste great! But experiment after experiment proved that I still had a lot to learn. When I tried applesauce as a substitute for butter, my cookies turned out weird and soggy, and my dried fruit muffins turned out like fruit cakes. And the most creative substitute I came up with was switching milk for soy milk. Eggs- don’t even ask.
After speaking with Aurelie Pare, the author of The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook, the best substitutes for butter are nut butters or dried fruit purees. Dried fruit purees usually work best in recipes where large amounts of butter are required - think cookies and breads - and nut butters work best for recipes that only call for small amounts. Of course there are many advantages to cutting butter and adding nut butters or fruit purees, which include increased levels of healthy fats, lower saturated fat, and added protein and fiber. Using dried fruit can also reduce calories.
Janel Ovrut, a vegan dietitian and author of Dine Dish Delish also points out that you can use soy butters in place of butter. But you need to be careful when choosing store bought butter alternatives, as many contain hydrogenated oils which over time can be as bad for you as smoking cigarettes.
Hydrogenated oils will not only kill you but they will also make you fatter - the chemicals in them will make your cravings more intense and they interfere with the body’s ability to ingest and use the good fats. If you’re not familiar with hydrogenated oils, they are generally made by heating oils and passing hydrogen bubbles through it to create a solid (AKA a fat). They are often labeled as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, or even mono and di glycerides. Please READ the labels. Many popular, seemingly healthy store brands of butter substitutes still contain hydrogenated oils, including Brummel & Brow’s Yogurt Spread, Blue Bonnet, Fleischman’s, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, and Land O’Lakes just to name a few. Again, read the labels!
Aurelie also gave me some great tips for replacing milk. For most of her recipes, she uses juice concentrate as a milk replacement. This not only adds some vitamin C to your recipe but also reduces the amount of sugar needed. And she says, “for those concerned about consuming too much juice, remember that replacing milk with juice in the average cake recipe that yields enough for 16 people means that you’ll only be consuming around 2 tbsp of juice per serving, which is 1/4 of a serving of juice.”
The most interesting replacement technique (at least to me) was eggs. I never realized that you could use flax meal as an egg replacement and I’m a flax seed addict. Janel says she uses 1 TBSP ground flax mixed with 3 TBSPs water per egg. Aurelie also suggests fruit purees or nut butters.
I’ll be featuring a series of great new vegan baking recipes over the next couple weeks. I’m excited to see how they turn out and share them here. If you know of any good ones, please send them to me at jamie@ilikegranola.com, I’d love to check them out. Now, get to baking!
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When vegan baked goods are done well they rock. A favorite location for vegan sweets is French Meadow in Minneapolis. Locally, I found my new favorite “non-cookie” at Whole Foods last week that was a soft Ginger Spice. An office-friend who’s gluten free commented about how good it tasted. I am definitely looking forward to finding out about your vegan baking over the coming weeks!
Wow - these are substitutions I never dreamed possible! I’m glad you called out the health risks of (partially) hygrodgenated oils. Substitutes like margarine are so often quick fixes to reduce calories or fat, but carry long-term consequences. It’s really interesting to read about natural, non-intuitive substititions like nut butters and flax seed!