Baking question: margarine or butter?

suzywoozy_3

Well i would love to use only butter in my baking but as I have a dairy intolerant son it's marge or nothing here. I use vitalite for spreading - I think it tastes the nicest of all the margarines. I tend to use Value spread or large tubs of own brand baking marge for cooking - I think everything turns out fine except shortbread where you really do need the buttery taste. I bake scones and cakes and biscuits and pastry - although I also tend to do this half and half with Trex - and it all turns out well and I think it is still healthier than buying pre made stuff.

I would like to do more baking using oil instead of marge as I think this would be better but I don't really know where I'd start with that - the only cake I tried with oil turned out very greasy.

Ben84

I've tried baking cakes with oil and didn't like it. The cookery book said I had to swap every oz of margarine/butter with two tablespoons of vegetable oil, and add extra baking powder. The cakes worked ok, but they taste so much nicer with block margarine. Much better texture and it stayed moist, while the oil cake was very dry.

blitz

I use to be a firm believer that cakes,biscuits ect only butter would do,it gives a much better taste IMO, untill my OH bought 4 blocks of Willow thinking it was butter by mistake, 2 for £1 at Iceland. I didnt want to throw them away so used them in my nexted lot of baking , & can honestly say there was no difference from using butter & its now what I always use in baking. It turned out a nice money saving mistake for a change:rotfl:

BrandNewDay

I have made a cake tonight with Stork. It is sooo much cheaper than butter, and I expect it to taste every bit as good.

Weirdly enough, the Asda brand equivelent on the shelf right next to it (packaged in such a way that it was clearly meant to compete with Stork) was significantly more expensive.

BrandNewDay

catowen wrote: »

I use butter or lard for my baking, may have more calories, but its more natural than marg. I do use sunflower/veg oil for frying, but we dont eat much fried food so its not used that much.

As Thriftlady said, thats the whole point of home baking, better tasting, healthier food (food you know what the ingredients are!!)

I noticed that the Tesco Value lard was nearly as cheap as the margarine... 50p, maybe? So, if that won't make a cake taste funny, why wouldn't I use that? Will lard work in a cake?

I believe that animal fats are healthy for us. Eating fat does not make us fat. Eating too much sugar makes us fat because what your body can't immediately metabolize is stored as fat. But, ingested fat doesn't go from your stomach to your hips. (Same thing goes for cholesterol. The stuff hardening your arteries is manufactured by your body. It doesn't originate in your breakfast omelet.)

BrandNewDay

BrandNewDay wrote: »

I have made a cake tonight with Stork. It is sooo much cheaper than butter, and I expect it to taste every bit as good.

Weirdly enough, the Asda brand equivelent on the shelf right next to it (packaged in such a way that it was clearly meant to compete with Stork) was significantly more expensive.

OK! If anything, the cake made with Stork was better than the last time I made it. The only reservation I have about Stork is that it is salted a bit. When I made the icing, I was able to use up a stub of unsalted butter for about 40% of the needed fat content, and then used Stork for the rest. I could detect a bit of saltiness when it was just the chocolate melted in the fat, but by the time I blended in the sour cream and icing sugar, I couldn't notice any saltiness. Nor could I notice it in the cake. It may even slightly enhance the flavour to some extent.

I am really glad I've asked this question because margarine/stork is significantly cheaper than butter. If someone is looking to save money by baking from scratch, this really helps.

mum2many

Can i use asda you butter believe it to make a sponge cake?

ravylesley

If you look at the packaging it should somewhere is some obscure corner say whether its suitable for frying and baking.If not I'd give it a go because I'm sure I've used it at some time or other cos I shop at Asda and have bought their own brand everything.The only margarines I ave encountered that arent suitable for cooking are the tesco value soft spread and some of the really low fat jobbies other than that the have all been fine.Happy Baking

Lesleyxx

muz

I don't see why not. I have used anything from Stork to real butter, depending on what I have in at the time!

peb

I used the Morrisons equivalent and it was ok.

I could tell it was not butter but no one else seemed bothered....