Which Butter is Suitable for Baking?

Fat is an essential component of pastry dough, whether cake, biscuits, yeast plait or savory quiche shortcrust pastry. Not only shortbread tastes best with the delicate yellow milk fat product. During the preparation, the question arises as to which butter is best suited for baking. After all, there are various products in the refrigerated section that have different tastes and fat contents:

• Mildly acidified butter
• Sweet cream or sour cream butter
• Butter spread
• Clarified butter
• Reduced fat or salted butter

By the way: The two commercial classes German branded butter and German dairy butter are pure quality designations. Mountain farmer, alpine, and pasture butter are marketing names that are not regulated by law. Which butter you bake with is mainly a question of taste. So just try out what tastes best to you.

The best butter for baking cookies and cakes

Sweet cream butter is particularly good for baking: it is beautifully creamy and naturally slightly sweet – ideal for cakes and biscuits. The mildly acidified version is also a good choice. You can also use salted or sour cream butter for baking for savory pastries that can use a hearty touch. Half-fat butter is not a problem for the consistency of the dough, but since fat is a flavor carrier, cakes, and co. lose their aroma. Even with spreadable butter – often a mixture of vegetable and animal fat – the fat content is usually lower, but you can also bake with it. Lard can be used like butter without restrictions. Incidentally, you can easily obtain liquid butter for baking soft dough and batter by melting the fat in a water bath.

Plant-based alternatives such as margarine: which ones to use for baking?

In principle, the same applies to margarine: prefer the full-fat version. You can use low-fat margarine for baking, but with a loss of taste. Anyone who eats animal-free diet wonders which vegan butter is available for baking. Naturally, there is no such thing as real milk-based butter, but there are butter-flavored vegetable fats. These give baked goods their typical taste. If you want to try baking without butter, you can also use oils and replace at least part of the fat with quark, yogurt, nut, apple or banana puree, and avocado puree.