Regular Vegan Butter - Cocoa Butter Base

Sorry things didn't work out Isabelle! This Vegan Butter mimics the approximately 80% fat and 20% water of traditional diary butter. This ratio is pretty close to Earth Balance Buttery Sticks too. I wonder what type of fat the Vegan Butter was substituting? If the original fat in your recipe was different, than it could lead to unpredictable results. If you're substituting for traditional dairy butter or Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, things should have been consistent in your cookies.

Feel free to private message me if you'd like to discuss. Glad it was able to be turned into biscotti though! Thanks for your feedback!

Hi jonesian! I buy all my deodorized cocoa butter online but if you do that just be sure to buy food grade cocoa butter. In this recipe I link to Regular Vegan Butter - Coconut oil base. This would be your best bet to start out with. Good luck!

Hi Utee! Wow, that's a lot of xanthan gum! I use it a lot in my experiments and I think I've gone through less than half a pound in the last 10 years. The most important specialty ingredient in Vegan Butter is the soy lecithin because it allows the fat to mix with the water to enable a creamy consistency. The xanthan gum can be substituted for guar gum. I prefer xanthan gum because it improves the vegan butter's ability to trap air bubbles during mixing and adds a bit of emulsification (like the lecithin already does) but it's an extremely small difference compared to other gums like guar gum. Good luck!

Hi Mariana, my article on Regular Vegan Butter - Coconut Oil Base explains the food science of why soy milk is preferred over almond milk.
http://www.veganbaking.net/recipes/fats/vegan-butters/vegan-butter
In a nutshell, the apple cider vinegar provides acidity which alters the protein in the soy milk, leading to buttery flavors. Almond milk doesn't have enough protein to have the same level of butter flavor production but it'll still do the job to some extent if you're anti-soy. Good luck!

Hi Amy! I've been meaning to dive into the issue of lecithin granules not dissolving in these vegan butter recipes. I think the solution may be heating the mixture to a certain temperature while whisking until the granules disappear, but I want to test it and make sure it's a good, sound method before updating all of the vegan butter recipes- it looks like you did that and it still didn't allow the lecithin granules to dissolve.

In my earlier testing of lecithin granules in these recipes, I didn't have issues probably because of the specific ones I happened to have on hand (from Kalustyan's in NYC). Sorry it didn't work out- I should have a solution hopefully soonish!

In the meantime, I recommend ordering liquid lecithin online. It's super cheap, lasts forever and works beautifully.

That's a great point res1! I actually do most of my recipe development in metric nowadays. Someday I'll have all the recipes on Veganbaking.net to have the option of metric measurements but it's going to take an incredible amount of work to get everything accurately converted. I'll probably start with the Vegan Butter recipes because that's where people tend to bring this up the most. Metric is increasingly important the more you scale up a recipe (and arguably not as important for small batches made in the home) so this will be a great benefit for people who want to make larger quantities for things like bake sales. Thanks for the feedback!

Hi Anat! Swapping out 2 Tablespoons of cocoa butter with 2 Tablespoons canola oil will work for any of my Vegan Butter recipes- you're just displacing solid fats with liquid ones so the Vegan Butter gets softer. The lecithin powder should theoretically dissolve more completely if you can find it. You should be able to get by with slightly less powder, say 2 teaspoons.

You might also want to try heating the mixture up just slightly so the lecithin granules can dissolve more easily. I may update the recipe at some point to reflect this. Good luck!

Hi Anat! I couldn't detect any difference in flavor or mouthfeel with deodorized cocoa butter. To make a spreadable version, swap out about 2 Tablespoons of the cocoa butter with 2 Tablespoons canola oil. If you want it even softer you can continue to swap out more cocoa butter for canola oil too. Good luck!

Hi mrsliang! You can substitute rice or coconut milk but the Vegan Butter won't have the same flavor because there won't be enough protein. To find out why, check out my article on how to make Vegan Butter: http://www.veganbaking.net/fats/vegan-butters/735-vegan-butter

To substitute the lecithin, some people have had success with using agar powder, say 1/4 teaspoon or so dissolved into the Vegan Butter just before solidifying. I can't guarantee the agar substitute will work but let me know if you end up giving it a shot. Good luck!

Hi Jody! You could probably "get by" with nut milk but here's the deal: Vegan Butter utilizes the buttery flavors (likely diacetyl) that are created from denaturing (coagulating) protein with acid. In this case, soy milk provides the protein and apple cider vinegar usually provides the acid, depending on the recipe. Since nut milks have barely any protein, they won't coagulate as much, and will produce less buttery flavor. It certainly can be done with pretty much any non-dairy milk, but your Vegan Butters will be tastier if you use soy milk. Good luck!