Why Use Alternatives for Butter?
Few ingredients are more well-known and utilized within the sphere of food and baking than butter. However, for the 30 to 50 million Americans who are lactose intolerant, or even for those who are generally health conscious, butter has been a longtime foe. Butter is the dairy product that results as a separation from churning milk or cheese. It is essentially a highly concentrated form of fluid milk. Butter contains up to 80% butterfat and can be chilled and used as a solid, or melted and used as a liquid. Derived from animals, butter generally has higher levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, and when consumed in high amounts, butter has been thought to increase levels of cholesterol. That being said, recent studies have alternately shown that certain types of butter (including grass-fed and Ghee) can be healthy alternatives to traditional butter. As with everything, moderation is key and the inner workings of a healthy diet. Although studies have been generally mixed concerning the respective health benefits and downsides of butter, many people remain interested in substitutes for butter.Substitutes for Butter
When deciding to substitute an ingredient for butter, it's important to consider what you will be using it for. The most ideal butter substitutes vary based on the intended use and will yield much more satisfactory results when a proper substitute is used. For example, when baking breads, muffins, or cookies, butter can serve as a mechanism for retaining moisture or creating density. Alternatively, when butter is used for pie crust, it helps to create a much sought-after flaky crust. When used as a topping or a spread, butter is generally used to provide a creamy and rich flavor to our breads, pastries, and potatoes. Due to the unique and versatile nature of butter and its respective uses, it is always advisable to substitute with an alternative that can provide those same characteristics to the dish you're eating or serving. A good phrase to remember is that not all substitutes are created equal. While keeping that in mind, some of the most commonly used substitutes include coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, safflower oil, nut butter, applesauce, yogurt, and dairy free butter.Oil
Nut Butter
When it comes to baking, nut butters such as almond and peanut butter make great dairy butter alternatives. Due to their sweet and creamy consistencies, they can help retain moisture in batters and dough while decreasing the amount of added sugar needed. Chock full of healthy fats and nutritional value, almond butter is slowly becoming a preferred topping on breads, bagels, and pastries. Although almond and peanut butter have higher overall fat content than dairy butter does, the quality of the fats differ greatly. Unlike dairy butter, nut butter is mainly comprised of monounsaturated fats.Applesauce
Applesauce is another great butter alternative when baking. Applesauce can be a healthy substitute for butter, touting 166 calories per cup and packed full of vitamins and nutrients. If sugar is a concern, there are options for unsweetened applesauce that will serve as a viable substitute as well. Applesauce can help work as a binding agent when baking and will create a slight change in taste and texture. Applesauce typically creates a sweet and soft texture in oil-based goods when substituted for butter. When using applesauce in place of butter, it is advisable to replace half of the amount of butter in the recipe with applesauce. When baking bread, you can use applesauce instead of butter to create a more dense and moist loaf.Yogurt
Yogurt can be a great substitute for recipes if you are looking for a healthy, low fat, and low calorie replacement to butter. Greek yogurt can provide a rich and tangy flavor to baked goods, much like its counterpart, buttermilk, and with less overall fat and calories. When substituting yogurt for butter in baking recipes, it is best to follow a 1:1 ratio. If the recipe calls for 1 cup of butter, you can replace it with 1 cup of yogurt. However, yogurt tends to increase the moisture content in a recipe, and as such, bakers suggest only using yogurt in place of recipes that call for 1 cup or less of butter. Greek yogurt is much denser and has a consistency closer to solid butter rather than melted. Therefore, when using Greek yogurt in bread or cake recipes, it will create a dense consistency. If the recipe is too dense, this can be remedied by adding more of other liquids the recipe calls for.
Assuming we're talking about baking, butter can NOT be substituted equally for oil.
Butter is 80-82% fat, while oil is 100% fat. Butter also contains about 18% water (which evaporates into steam, lightening and leavening your baking) as well as 2% milk solids, which brown and contribute flavor to baking. None of these properties are replaced when substituted for oil.
If you want to substitute oil for butter, it seems like the only responsible way to do it in a baking recipe would be to weigh the required amount of butter (in grams), and replace 80% of that with a solid fat like coconut oil, 18% with water, and 2% with something that will brown like dry soy milk powder. Keeping those proportions right would provide more faithful results than a 1 for 1 swap with oil (or, God forbid, applesauce!)
As for simulating a buttery flavor and not getting watery, like for veggies, toast etc - I put a very light tasting olive oil, salt, and a few drops of butter extract in a spray bottle. Voila. It really tastes like butter. I didn't even know they make "butter extract" but yeah, its made like other extracts, and it created from butter. (McCormick's, and it isn't even expensive) - it's with all the other ones like Vanilla.