substitute for butter?

[melfitz]

Hello all!

I'm new to posting although I've been reading the boards for a long while.:D

Does anyone have any butter substitution ideas? In particular, I've been making Barefoot Contessa's cranberry harvest muffins (a modified version using low-fat buttermilk instead of whole milk and just adding cranberries and walnuts) and the recipe calls for 1/2 lb. butter. The muffins are delicious, but I can't get over the amount of butter. DH has high cholesterol and I like to eat healthy anyway. Any suggestions would be great. I thought about reducing the butter to 1 stick and increasing the buttermilk. Would this work?

I've used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter butter (since it has no cholesterol) with much success in baking. But, I decided to stop using it since it contains partially hydrogenated oils.


Thanks!

-Melanie

[sooty]

I use Earth Balance tub spread (not the whipped, the regular) and it works great, no hydrogenated fats. It is available in health food stores, I stock up when it goes on sale, the exp dates are a few months ahead. Earth balance also has pre measured 1/2 c shortening bars that I use for pie crust and whenever shortening is called for. I think a comparable grocery store brand is Smart Balance. HOpe this helps.

[Aubergine]

welcome out of lurkdom, melanie!

thanks for pointing up this recipe. i've been a BC fan for years, but somehow haven't heard any buzz about these muffins and overlooked it completely. unfortunately, IG's recipes are loaded with fat and sodium, so i usually have to alter them.

i'm in the same predicament as you in re: fat, cholesterol, etc., with SO. looking at the recipe, here's how i'm going to approach it when i make them today (i have cranberries to use up:)):

-sub skim milk for whole milk
-sub 1 large egg + 2 whites for 2 XL eggs (if you're worrying about cholesterol, you MUST cut back on egg yolks)
-sub 1 stick butter + 1/2 cup oil for the 1/2 lb butter
-sub chopped dates for the figs (wish i had some on hand!)

i'll see how that turns out. substitutes for butter vary from recipe to recipe. i buy the Smart Balance but have never baked with it. often, applesauce is used to replace the moisture that butter provides and that might work here, too. in many recipes, i simply reduce the butter by 1/3 to 1/2, but with 3 cups/flour and an 18-muffin yield, i'm going to keep the amount of fat in this one.

in recipes that are chocolate-y in nature, prune puree can be subbed - there's a brand that is marketed specifically for baking.

i'll let you know how they turn out.

[blazedog]

I'm not sure whether you are asking about butter substitutions in general or with respect to baking this particular recipe.

In general, for health I use all oils and fats in moderation. Olive oil and canola oil (at least in terms of what I've read most recently) are the healthiest. Soybean is to be avoided because it's not particularly healthy and is so ubiquitous in terms of what one will eat away from home and in processed foods.

My personal philosophy is better a teeny bit of wonderful butter than a large amoun of mediocre margerine whatever it's made of -- but I don't eat it everyday.

With respect to baking, I don't bake enough to want to experiment with recipes as I want excellent results. Baking is a chemistry more so than cooking and substitutions are going to alter the results in ways that are unpredictable to those who aren't expert food chemists -- and even then the results can't be predicted.

If you want to make low fat muffins, I would suggest using some of the really wonderful recipes on the C/L site as these have been proven to work. Even better are the recipes that have been tried by people on this board and come with personal recommendations -- as with everything not all recipes are created equally :)

I made the muffins with strawberry jam in the middle a few months ago because so many people had raved about them. They are lowfat (a C/L recipe) and really were excellent.