Which alternative "butter" is best for your kitchen?
I have kicked off my new Lily's Kitchen Stories on my instagram stories which you can watch here.
There are so many alternative "butters", baking blocks, spreads out on the market these days it can be difficult to know which one to choose. Compared to when I was little, we now have such a huge choice of alternatives which makes for exciting possibilities for enthusiastic home cooks and bakers.
Alternative "butters" are made from a combination of vegetable oils, flavouring, and certain vitamins. Below I've chosen which products work best for baking, icing, cooking and everyday sandwich making:
Best for toast & sandwiches
Vitalite dairy free spread and Flora Buttery are perfect for those who are missing the buttery flavour from their everyday "toast for breakfast", but can no longer eat the original dairy product. Pure Olive Spread provides a more subtle but still lovely spread, perfect for toast, sandwiches, and slathering on jacket potatoes.
Best for baking biscuits & pastries
Stork baking block is your answer to lovely light homemade pastries, biscuits and scones. Pure Perfect Baking is best suited for making homemade icing, biscuits, and greasing tins. Whereas Flora's newly released unsalted plant butter is a wonderful addition to any baker's pantry; I recently made some delicious digestive biscuits (see below) which provided the perfect crunch and flavour. Their packaging is also 100% biodegradable which is always a plus.
Best for dairy-free buttercream icing
Dairy-free vegetable shortenings, like Trex and Pure Perfect Baking above have higher melting temperatures. Higher melting temperatures = stiffer buttercream = more robust layered cakes. Think of it as a delicious glue that holds together the sponges. Alternatively you can opt for half vegan "butter' (say half Pure olive spread, half Trex for the perfect buttercream).
