How to bake for lactose intolerant? Does a dairy-free butter exist?

[greenday]

Got a friend visiting over the weekend. So I've stocked up on soya milk but thought it would be nice to bake my 'famous' chocolate orange potato cake for her but I'm not sure what to use in replacement of butter.
Any ideas? Thanks!

Vegetable oil maybe?

Or soya marg?

light olive oil (ie the cheap stuff) works beautifully

Pure do a dairy free spread or 3 (I used to use the sunflower one, in an orange pot), and vitalite is also dairy free.

chocolate orange potato cake sounds yummy...

use soya marg, anything labelled "suitable for vegans" as veggie oil stuff often has whey powder added.
Trex is good for pastry

Thanks SG, I saw dairy-free margarine but not entirely convinced that it will do the cake justice. Thought I'd check on MN first before settling for it as a last resort.
Any ideas or advice, keep them coming please! Thanks!!! x

Ooh, thanks everyone! One more question - the recipe requires mixing butter and flour till crumbly ... so if I used oil or margarine, would it be alright? I guess I should just bite the bullet and try ... but it would be nice to get all you baking experts' opinions!

Pure and vitalite do both work really well, I promise!

Yes, Pure is fab.

You can replace the butter in most sponge cakes with 4/5 the weight of oil. Ie instead of 5oz butter, use 4oz oil.

There are loads of non-dairy butters and they're great, don't taste different in cakes. I did a whole birthday party - biscuits, cakes, sarnies - using Pure and no one noticed, no kids going 'this tastes funny' etc. Highly recommend it.

Greenday - could I be cheeky and ask for the recipe? I'm intrigued...

If someone is lactose intolerant, butter in a cake shouldn't really cause them any problem - there's barely any lactose in butter, and cooking lactose tends to change it, imo and ime.

Is this a dairy allergy maybe?

At any rate, lots of margarine has some dairy in it, but Pure, as barnstaple says, is fine.

I wouldn't substitute a liquid fat for a solid one, tbh - they have different qualities, and a cake recipe that calls for butter, needs that or something similar.

There are loads of cake recipes that use liquid fat (safflower oil, whatever).

Go to boots and buy them some drops to take just before eating the cake. The pharmacist will tell you what they are - they're actually for babies but you just double the dose for adults - it worked on my MIL. Colief or something....

Vitalite is lovely, I buy it out of choice. It has the same sort of salt ratio as butter, whereas 'healthier' light marges don't.

Thank you everyone for your response! I bought Pure today and I'm looking forward to trying it out (my local Sainsbury didn't have Vitalite)!

NCQ - you're right, I think I got it wrong. Its a dairy allergy, not lactose intolerance.

Phlossie - its a yummy cake, imo. Can't take the credit though, its from riverford. I'll find it now and attach it. People get a bit put off by the potato but you can hardly taste it, yet it lends to the moist texture without it being too buttery and sickly.

www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=555&catid=8

Did i mention too? It's such an easy cake to make.

if you have a kosher deli or live in a biown you can buy tomor margarine, which is a butter substitute suitable for baking, comes in blocks like butter or in a tub like marge.

*biown???? should be big town ! LOL!

I have used teh Pure Soya loads of times - I didn't find much difference with the end result when using it for baking - Everytinhg still turned out nicely and tasted lovely.

Excellent typing!

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i always have both pure spreads in- the soya one is superb in cakes because it's quite creamy tasting, for pastry, i use the sunflower version, it's not as 'wet', oh and alpro sweetened sya milk is the dogs for sweet stuff, it's got a vanilla taste to it