Natural dairy free alternative for baking

[XmasEveshopper]

I'm trying a dairy free diet for a short while to see if it helps with eczema however I'm not sure what's the best alternative to use instead of butter when baking. I normally use butter, organic milk, full fat versions of everything and avoid sweeteners, and anything with too long a list of ingredients and I've never been keen on margarines (too many sandwiches with lots of marg in the 70's) and am a bit clueless about the trans fats, hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils so tend to avoid them if I see them listed. I've found a chocolate cake recipe that uses olive oil instead of butter which looks ok and I've read you can just use 75% of vegetable oil instead of butter but I was wondering if there were any MN recommendations for this sort of thing apart from avoiding all cakes!

Oil cakes are surprisingly good - perhaps less fluffy but very moist. This is delicious; www.thekitchn.com/vegan-recipe-damp-orange-cake-136406

I use vitalite instead of butter, I have no idea if it’s awful in terms of trans fats etc but my ds is allergic to dairy so I figure a bit of vitalite in a cake every once in a while isn’t the end of the world.

Vitality or own brand versions works well. If you want to make no buttercream, use half Trex and half Vitalite.

Thank you, I will definitely try that orange cake this weekend. I love the sound of the orange marmalade glaze, I'll try it with the rum. I'll bite the bullet and also try the olive oil chocolate cake too. Thanks also for the vitalite and trex info, I'll check them out online - I'm really conscious I can't pick up things and read the labels in stores for ages like I'd normally do.

Coconut oil is solid at room temperature and has a texture much closer to butter than other cooking oils. This meansit’s great for replacing butter in most of your baking. A generally good rule of thumb is to replace the amount of butter with three quarters that amount of coconut oil mixed with a quarter that amount of cold or tepid water. Make sure to mix the water and coconut oil together well before you add to the rest of your mix - don’t simply throw in water and coconut oil separate from one another. It’s good for light and fluffy cakes like a Victoria sponge, as solid fats can be creamed with sugar to trap air. It can also be rubbed into flour to make biscuits, pie crusts and pastry.
Liquid oils are better for bakes which require moistness, like banana bread. Also good for bakes with strong flavours like gingerbread cake. Cakes will have a denser structure, and need a chemical raising agent like baking soda.

One of my ds is dairy free and I use Flora buttery for baking as its vegan, in fact I think all Flora are vegan, I know you said you avoid margarine though so pointless reply I suppose!

Thanks ItsSpittingEverybodyIn I probably should look at margarine too as I'm sure they've changed a bit since the 70's

I use rapeseed oil in muffins instead of butter... but you'd still need milk I think.
I have made nigella's chocolate olive oil cake many times, successfully though.

This stuff is ok purefreefrom.co.uk/products/pure-perfect-baking/ and they do a table version for toast etc - no where near as delicious but it's ok

I use Flora Buttery too for baking for vegan DD. It tastes vastly different from the margarine from the 70s!