Regular Vegan Butter - Cocoa Butter Base

My girlfriend is vegetarian, and so I thought I would be more extreme then her and go Vegan, so here is to trying new things :)

I was actually not a HUGE fan of this recipe but I'll give it another shot. Sometimes it takes practice before you get what the recipe was actually intending to produce. Technique and timing are important!

I've never really been a huge fan of vegan recipes but my wife started making stuff and these ones are not actually that bad!

worked for me thanks so much! tasty and easy to make.

Worked great for me. Thanks so much for sharing!

I was very encouraged to find this site. The reason being that this is such an informative recipes.

Hi! I have made this recipe a lot and it's fantastic. I saved me early on. But, I have a problem. Due to cholesterol issues I can't (well, not I'm supposed to) use coconut oil. So I've switched to a seed based oil - safflower. But the butter won't hardened like it will with coconut oil.

Do you know what I can use as a thickener so my butter acts like real butter? For me personally, I don't mind it but sometimes I have company and it's not really cool that it's in liquid form. Sometimes, a solid form is just more convenient.

Please SOS.
Thank you!

Logan

Hi! I have made this recipe a lot and it's fantastic. I saved me early on. But, I have a problem. Due to cholesterol issues I can't (well, not I'm supposed to) use coconut oil. So I've switched to a seed based oil - safflower. But the butter won't hardened like it will with coconut oil.

Do you know what I can use as a thickener so my butter acts like real butter? For me personally, I don't mind it but sometimes I have company and it's not really cool that it's in liquid form. Sometimes, a solid form is just more convenient.

Please SOS.
Thank you!

Logan

Hello, I did everything as mentioned but the mixture looks broke to me. The fat and the liquid dont seem to have mixed. I blended it for a long time approx 8 minutes in food processor and again with a hand blender. But It doesnt look well combined. Any tips for those who probably dont have a powerful blender?

this was difficult and messy compared to recipe below. I think because I had to wait on 15 dollar xanthum gum and sunflower lecithin and it's thick and gooey and sticks to the sides of the blender. to me unnecessary step and mess. and it's half of the other oil which made it taste like the oil instead of buttery. I made the below recipe a week ago. sooooo much easier, less goop to clean up and the nutritional yeast adds buttery flavour.
dang, can't believe I waited 10 days for this stuff in the mail when the other recipe was better to me.
1 cup (240ml) Refined Coconut Oil (Melted)*
2 Tbsp Canola Oil*
1/3 cup (80ml) Unsweetened Soy or Almond Milk
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp Nutritional Yeast
Small Pinch Turmeric
1/2 tsp Salt

this recipe was soooooo much easier, no gooey soy lecithin, much better color and more flavour.

Thankful for Happy Chappy's note here. I think I've only just realized that everytime I've made something like this it's never been properly emulsified. I just noticed my batch "broke" after the initial mix. I realized my cocoa butter was still a little chunky so I put it back in the Vitamix and on pouring it out...broke! I wonder if treating it more like an aioli would be helpful? Blending the solid fats and slowly adding the liquid fat then the curdled soy & emulsifier? Might give it a try! Thanks for all this help!

**immediately after writing this comment I went to my partially chilled broken butter, put a stick blender in it and emulsification came right back, so there is hope beyond the point of adding the soymilk & emulsifier!

Liquid soy lecithin is the one you want to get. All others fail in comparison. On a side note, you only have 1 opportunity to add the emulsifier to the butter and that is when you add the milk mixture in. Otherwise you're gonna trash your batch and will have to start over.

Also Coconut cream works better to curdle than soymilk. When you add the salt to the milk/vinegar mixture do it AFTER the milk curdles. For some reason the milk won't curdle when the salt it is added at the same time as the vinegar.

Would increasing cocoa butter and decreasing canola oil yield a higher fat content vegan butter similar to french butter or clarified butter?

Jim

Hi Josh,
Check out Mattie's croissant recipe. He uses a mix of his Regular Vegan Butter and his Vegan Shortening. http://www.veganbaking.net/recipes/pastries/croissants

Which butter of yours is the closest to true butter in its hydration/plasticity and melting freezing temperatures ? I'd assume the cocoa butter over the coconut but I may be wrong. I'm trying to get something as close to true butter for croissants and laminated dough and my coconut butters have been a failure, they get too firm when chilled and will crack. Also which browns the best ??? Questionsss

I wanted to make some cookies for my niece who is vegan. I had to search awhile to find the soy lecithin and xanthum gum, eventually found both on the internet (of course...) after searching my local health food stores and Whole Foods Market. Once I had all the ingredients, the preparation of the vegan butter was easy and the texture was perfect. The cookies came out great. (I had tried using the Earth Balance shortening first and the cookies did not come out well.)
I had made some extra and so I tried it on steamed broccoli - it was really good! It melted just like butter with a good, rich taste.
One comment about the apple cider vinegar. I found the "bite" from the apple cider vinegar to be a bit strong on the first batch of butter I made. Since then I have cut the apple cider vinegar in half or eliminated it completely and substituted the coconut vinegar instead to make up the volume.

The recipe looks great, how about Tara gum, might I use it? I'm from Italy, it's more common here, and it seems more healthy?

To those having issues with the lecithin: I could only find soy lecithin granules locally. After reading about problems dissolving, I crushed the granules with a mortar and pestle and whisked them and the xanthan into the already curdled soy milk mixture. The result was a very smooth butter!

I'm thankful for this site and for this recipe. I'll have to check out the others.
I tried making a vegan butter using the other recipe posted via UTube. It works and tastes ok for savory dishes, but definitely not for baking, especially recipes that rely heavily on butter for flavor, such as lemon curd.
It took me a couple of months to get the ingredients and to finally get my acts together in making this simple butter's recipe and I'm glad I did it. I didn't have problem with dissolving xantham gum. I did follow one reviewer and mixed it in with the curdle soy milk and whisk it well before adding it to the the rest of the ingredients. I used a powerful blender so I think it also helped. I didn't have light olive oil so I used Extra virgin olive oil and I think next time, I'll definitely use light olive oil instead because I prefer not to be able to taste the olive oil in the butter. I don't recommend using canola oil as it isn't a healthy oil, but I think with such a small amount, it might be ok to use making this butter once in a while. I used unrefined coconut oil as this was what I had and I think it was ok. The only thing I would change to this recipe is reducing the amount of salt added.

All in all, this is a really nice recipe! Thanks so much for taking the time to post a nice recipe!!

I love this butter, and the banana as well. And I mean LOVE. I make them all the time.

I was wondering if, with the very precise measurements, if you have not thought of weighing the ingredients. I've taken to weighing everything when I bake in grams and get much more consistent results.

Thanks for the recipes!!!

Mark

I created this butter, and it went perfectly well. The recipe makes for a great toasting butter, as well as for a pretty good butter for my Indian butter seitan recipe. However, when used to make my Santa Claus cookies (chocolate chip cookies), the results were not so great.

Oh, the cookies tasted great, and looked great, too. Only, after less than 20 minutes on the cooling rack, they were as hard as rock!

We are a resourceful bunch, so we converted them in biscotti, but I thought you'd like to know.

Hi - I can't fine refined (deodorized) cocoa butter or even the oil anywhere in my part of England - is there something else I can use, please?

Thanks!

Dear Mattie,

I'm from Indonesia. I'm new to vegan baking and altough many products here I can easily used to convert regular baking to vegan baking,I want to give a shot on making my own vegan butter. My regular cooking oil is a refined coconut oil n its cheap too,given that coconut practically grows on my backyard.
Still some of your ingredients are hard to find.Soy lechitin for one is difficult to find, no matter the form. I finaly found a local place to buy a good soy lechitin in liquid forms. My biggest problem is finding xanthan gum because I can't find it anywhere from drugstore to baking store and I even try chemical store (yes,that's how desperate I am). This morning I found 1 seller, online, but i have to buy it in a bulk n its pricey. They ask for US$ (yes,its in dollar) 26 per kilo and honestly I don't think I need that much. Could you suggest me what subtitutes I can use to replace xantham gum? How about guar gum or arabic gum, does it safe for eating?

Thanks for your help and I hope to start vegan baking using my own vegan butter instead of a lump of yellow margarine.

This looks great! I was just wondering if I could use almond milk instead of soy milk for any of the vegan butter recipes.

Thanks!

Hi, I got really excited by this recipe, but having tried two batches, I have brown lecithin specks in my butter. I can only find the liquid form in softgel capsules, so I emptied some out until I had a teaspoons worth. Some of the lecithin was smooth liquid, but some was gloopy. On the second batch, I tried heating lightly with the cocoa butter to try to dissolve it, and it came out a bit better but not perfect. Any suggestions? Can't wait to perfect this recipe as I've got loads of ideas for the butter and want to get baking with it!

Thanks

I like you recipes but I am surprised that you do not use grams for measurements - it is so much more accurate for baking.

Many thanks for your experimenting.

Hey Mattie,

I wonder if your suggestion to swap out 2 Tablespoons of the cocoa butter with 2 Tablespoons canola oil will work with coconut oil based butter too. Would you use the same ratio?

Also, I discovered that soy lecithin granules provided a more buttery flavor than the liquid alternative. Problem is, granules won't dissolve properly unless you boil the mixture (not recommended since heat reduces it's emulsifying powers). So i'd like to try lecithin powder instead. How much would you use?

Hey Mattie,

The idea of replacing the coconut oil with cocoa butter is very intriguing!
Could you sense any difference in flavor or mouth feel?

Also, how would you turn vegan butter (either this one, or the original recipe), into a buttery spread? (Earth Balance isn't available in my country, plus your version must be a lot healthier)

A spreadable version of your vegan butter would sure be a real treat!

Would I be able to substitute with Rice or Coconut milk?

Also any subs for soy and sunflower lecithin? My son is allergic to soy and sunflower seeds.

This is so cool how you were able to create your own butter, it looks like the real deal too.

Just one more question... Have you tried substituting a nut milk for the soy?