Substitute for Butter

Our answer

The view of what is a healthier alternative to butter can vary according to what you believe to be healthy. Most alternatives are still fat but may have unsaturated or other types of fat that some argue are better for the body.

Sometimes butter is needed for flavour, such as a for a plain pound or madeira cake and sometimes you need a hard fat as the creaming method is required in a cake recipe. Certainly for frying you can use alternatives such as olive oil or sunflower oil. For cakes if the butter is melted then you can use an alternative oil, such as sunflower. However as butter has a fat content of about 70-75% then you need to use 3/4 of the weight of the butter in oil, and make up the remainder with a dairly component such as milk or yogurt (or similar plant-based ingredients such as almond milk or soy yogurt). Please also keep an eye open for Nigella's new book Simply Nigella as this will contain lots of exciting recipes using fats other than butter.