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Produce => Recipes => Topic started by: Duke Ellington on July 29, 2008, 17:32:31
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Has anyone used this for cake baking? I have used it twice in the past two weeks and have got a really poor result making muffins and a chocolate cake!
Its states on the packet that it is suitable for baking. I know that it is mixed with a vegetable oil but I am getting a very soggy result when baking with it!
Duke
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If you try and bake with hydrogenated muck, what other result were you expecting ??? Why not use the real thing (BUTTER)
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Thanks Asbean for being direct :P:)
Duke
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sorry, Dukie, that's the way I am ::) ::) ::) ::)
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I am very pleased with the results that I am getting using liquid vegetable oil, instead of other solid and unhealthy fats.
You will find some recipes on my web site.
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The problem with veg oil is that if you buy from the supermarkets (grrrr) you are likely to get low grade highly refined oil, without knowing what "vegetable" it comes from - probably palm oil kernels - highly saturated. Better to get "cold pressed" (as in olive oil). Or sunflower oil.
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I ALWAYS, use Flora, for my baking, you know the one we have on the table.
Never had any complaints yet, it makes lovely fruit cakes & pastry.
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I think I am right in saying it doesn't matter what oil you buy, if you are going to cook with it, chemical changes take place and it is all bad for you, even the best olive oil.
Olive oil is only good for you so long as it is not heated.
So you might as well cook with spreadable, veg oil etc, whatever gives you the best results.
Sinbad
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Thanks everyone!! will be trying either sunflower oil or straight real butter ! Asbean I like the way you are ;) I wasn't offended!
Realfood ~you have a nice www!!
Duke
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Never had a problem with spreadable butter. I substituted it in this recipe and the cake was gorgeous!! Gluten-free too. Is very runny before its cooked, but dont be tempted to add flour to thicken it. I poured some rum over the top when it came out of the oven for good measure
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Flourless chocolate cake
Ingredients
Serves 6
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 50 min
200g dark, bitter chocolate
1 tbsp strong espresso coffee
1 tbsp rum or brandy
150g caster sugar
150g butter
100g ground almonds
5 eggs, separated
Icing sugar for dusting
METHOD
Melt the chocolate, coffee, rum or brandy, sugar and butter in a bowl sitting in a pot of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat and stir until well mixed.
Add the ground almonds and mix well. Beat in the egg yolks, one by one.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and peaky, and stir a couple of spoonfuls into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, before gently folding in the rest.
Turn into a buttered and floured 20cm (8in) round or square cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas 4 for 40 to 50 minutes (less if you like it fudgey, more if you like it cakey).
Leave to cool before removing gently from the tin, and dust with icing sugar to serve.
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That choclate cake recipes looks really good ~ I will try it next weeks thanks for the recipe Lewic ;D
Duke
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Yes, you have to check the bottle to see the % of saturated fat. I use rapeseed oil which has only 7% saturated fat.
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I think I am right in saying it doesn't matter what oil you buy, if you are going to cook with it, chemical changes take place and it is all bad for you, even the best olive oil.
Olive oil is only good for you so long as it is not heated.
So you might as well cook with spreadable, veg oil etc, whatever gives you the best results.
Sinbad
That's not my understanding at all. Olive oil has a fairly low smoke point compared to most animal fats, so if you're frying, it is possibly unwise as partially burnt oil is carcinogenic. An oil such as goose fat (or lard) has a much higher smoke point, so is safer for frying or roasting, but does of course contain much more saturated fat.
As a rule of thumb, if it's going to have dark brown bits (i.e. if the Maillard reaction is taking place), best to use animal fat. If you're not browning, best to use vegetable oil, as asbean says, that has been extracted in a healthy way.
Oh, butter has the lowest smoke point of all I think, but of course it also has the best taste...
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If you try and bake with hydrogenated muck, what other result were you expecting ??? Why not use the real thing (BUTTER)
Butter is undoubtedly best for taste.
But the reason that the butter/oil mixture doesn't work so well is that the oil is insufficiently hydrogenated.
Good cake and pastry fats need to be hard, not soft. You can still get Stork margarine in blocks. Tomor kosher margarine is good too. There's nothing inherently unhealthy about hardening fats by hydrogenation.
You can also use 100% fats like Trex (or deodorised lard), but make allowance in the amount you use. Butter and margarine are ~ 80% fat, 20% water, so you'll need a fifth less as explained here http://www.pura.co.uk/speciality.asp
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This is interesting - I decided to try and be healthy and make shortbread with Anchor lighter spreadable but the result was 'soggy' shortbread, I was really disappointed. I decided it was best to just make it less often, but just like you Duke I had read it on the packet.
Maybe they have some recipes that it is suitable for, I might try and follow that up with the manufacturers when I have more time. I keep trying to be a bit more healthy.... ???
Lewic your chocolate cake recipe sounds wonderful, hmmmmm
T.
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After three attempts I am now convinced its best to use either regular marg or real butter. I also noticed that the cake does not keep well using spreadable butter....the cake turns into a gooey mess! When I cut the chocolate cake you could actually see strings of goo!
Duke
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If yiou are using Anchor spreadable it is a blend of butter and oil. but Anchor LIGHT spreadable has water whipped into it to reduce the calorie content, that is why is goes soggy on toast. XX Jeannine
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I was told that the difference between these low fat spreads and plastic is one step in the processing.
I have always used butter up for all my cooking until recently when I've started experimenting with tofu. I have got some lovely dishes out of it and managed to sneak them past my dad without him noticing.
CC
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I still say you should try Flora.
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Miss Rosebud ~ I am buying some Flora today :)
I will let you know how I get on with it
Duke
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They used to use 'liquid paraffin' for baking during the war.
How about writing to Anchor for a recipe for using their product for baking?
Tell them how wonderful you find it and you never know, you might get a freebee too.
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Good idea Purple
;) Duke
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I use possibly half a pound of butter every couple of months - I do not bake cakes or anything like that! But what is wrong with buying the correct ingredients for cakes and the like?!
I use butter for a bit of frying - the occasional spread on ryvitas or whatever. But my point is WHY does anyone use these manufactured spreads. Why pay for added water. Surely you can spread butter thinner - if you are watching your weight or worried about animal fats - by letting it get warm and spread thinly. I used to buy Clover - which I thought at the time was great - but again someone told me that some scientists say that these mixes can cause cancer.
As I say, my diet is now pretty much animal fat free - I eat meat maybe once every couple of weeks or so -I probably eat half a dozen eggs a week and I buy semi skimmed milk but use only a two or three pints a week - the rest of the time it is veggie diet - and I seem to be pretty fit on it!
Old Bird
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What's the expression? "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognise as food" ??? ??? ???
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Use butter without all the additives, butter in moderation is better for you than all the other butter-like products that have various added (and removed) chemicals to make them look like butter. Just don't over eat.
Oh and if using anchor butter reduce the salt in your recipe salted butter means you won't need as much.
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i always used to use butter but for some reason thought that spreadable butter was butter ! When I used to use anchor spreadable it wasn't all that soft at all. But I have recently found out that they have changed their formulation and now add vegetable oil and some water to make it more spreadable. I think Kerry are the only people to make a softer butter without added oil and water.
Duke
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Hiya Duke
How come then that it is more pliable. The very thing about butter is that if it is cold it doesn't spread. Butter is butter wherever it is made! They must add something or else it would be like every other butter!
Old Bird
;D
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Hey old Bird !!
This is what I copied from the Kerry Gold www page! ~~~
*Most other 'spreadables' are actually blends of butter and vegetable oil. In fact, they can contain up to 31% vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is an inexpensive ingredient by comparison to pure butter fat and the type of vegetable oil added in these products is usually not declared, with the result that consumers do not know the source or origin or the extent of industrial processing to which the product has been subjected.
In stark contrast, Kerrygold Softer Butter is exactly that. It is 100% pure tasty Irish butter, which has been made softer naturally, so there is no need to add vegetable oil.
How do we make our butter softer?
By a combination of careful milk selection and a gentle cream crystallisation process. Kerrygold use only the milk from cows that graze naturally on the lush summer pastures of Ireland. *
Not sure what this means but they make it sound good! ;)
Duke
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Yes it is like the advert that says free range cows - pretty much every milk producing cow is free range - except in the winter when they are kept indoors!
It is a load of rubbish what these butter manufacturers put out! It is basically to sell more butter - but when have you ever asked for free range butter or milk? Organic yes but free range - that is where cows live - in fields!
Old Bird!
;D
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Actually that was the slogan pretty much I sent to an anchor competition in the mid 1980's I didn't win the prize but a few years later they started using the slogan I sent them.
New to the UK and working for an agricultural college I was taken on a tour with new recruits around the top UK dairy herd etc After which I would have become a confirmed vegan having seen how these poor animals lived in their own muck for a good part of the year and had such sore feet on the hard floors they could hardly stand. Plus the crap they seemed to be feeding them (later proved very correct there!) looked disgusting.
Animals in New Zealand aren't fed on that rubbish but eat grass in summer and supplemented with Hay and silage (grass) and fodder crops in winter. They don't spend the winter in a shed sitting in their own muck.
Hence anchor's claim is correct.