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Butter: Although many brands of vegan butter are available, they are not all equal, which affects their taste and performance in a recipe.
“Refined vegan butters are really good,” says Amanda Bankert, American owner of Boneshaker bakery in Paris and author of “Voilà Vegan.” She recommends European-style vegetable butters because they mimic the texture and flavor of the dairy butter she previously cooked with professionally in France.
Whatever you choose, make sure it isn’t labeled “light,” “whipped,” or “spreadable” and that water isn’t listed first on its ingredient list. In “The Vegan Cake Bible,” British author Sarah Kidd explains that where there is more fat, there is less water, which means less curdling of the dough or splitting of the buttercream . In her book “New Vegan Baking,” Bucharest-based Ana Rusu states that “butter with 75% fat is preferred for baking” and cites Earth Balance sticks, which contain 78%, as his first choice. Miyoko’s European Style Cultured Vegan Butter contains the same amount of fat and is another favorite of professional and home bakers.
DIY options: For people who don’t have access to a vegan butter suitable for baking, Australian author of “The Vegan Baker,” Zaccary Bird, offers a formula that combines soy milk, a combination of neutral oils, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, turmeric (for color) and a surprise, aquafaba. Via email, he explained that it was “inspired by Nina’s legendary Aquafaba butter, a viral recipe in the vegan baking community that [I] I came across aquafaba to make dairy-free flaky butter that you can use in any recipe.
Oil: Philip Khoury, who oversees all Harrods pastry production in London, avoids vegan butter altogether in his cookbook “A New Way to Bake.” It relies heavily on daily olive oil, which does not make its presence known as such or add flavor when used in relatively small doses. Her obscenely fudgy double chocolate brownies are an example of what a few tablespoons of this fat can do to enhance the cocoa butter effect of chocolate. In situations where he needs to add more oil, he recommends sunflower, safflower or peanut instead, preferably cold-pressed.
Shortening: Let’s not forget Crisco. Bankert got the idea to use it from her grandmother, who was not vegan and used the fat to make her pie crusts flaky. “I tried it and it had great results,” Bankert said. “I found out it was originally created because of a shortage of lard. Its initial objective was therefore to replace lard in pastries. Moreover, she appreciates its omnipresence.
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