Hi Liz! Good question! I’ve been planning to do a post specifically on the Science and substitutions of baking, but haven’t yet! I have on occasionally done dairy free cookies and cakes, but the results are never exactly the same. For this cake because it is a bit denser then a say a white cake, a substitution is easier. I would never recommend using margarine as a substitute; there is not enough of a solid fat to work with. You need butter because it is a solid fat that you cream the sugars with. That is crucial because it gives the texture and ‘fluff’ to the cake or bread. You could use shortening (I like the canola version), but typically that is a better sub for cookies, because they don’t rise as much. One thing you can do to mimic the creaming of the butter is separate your egg yolks from the whites. First, “cream” the yolks since they have fat with the sugar, then adding the whites with the other ingreds. I still think you should replace equal amounts of shortening for the butter still. For the buttermilk, skip it! I would sub with ~4 Tablespoons of applesauce instead. I have used applesauce for oil and some liquid fats several times before, not as rich, but worked! Curious to see how this turns out. Hope you are doing well!ReplyCancel