Adventures in Vegan Butter Making

I love Earth Balance. It’s a great nondairy butter that you can cook and bake with (and it’s great on toast). But, it can be expensive – upwards of $4.50 for 15 ounces. So, I decided to try my hand at making vegan butter myself. 

I turned to Professor Google and found a number of recipes. Some were ridiculously complicated and involved nut (milk) sacks (insert joke here). I wanted something relatively simple with uncomplicated ingredients. Most nondairy butters contain Palm or Soy oils which are not the best choices given GMOs (Soy) and rainforest destruction (Palm). Even Safflower has been genetically modified to be used as an industrial lubricant. So, whatever plant oil you’re going to use, go for organic or labeled “non-GMO” to avoid that.

The following recipe was the one out of five recipes I looked at and decided to try. It does contain soy lecithin, an emulsifier, but you can buy non-GMO granules from Now Foods and Swanson and other companies. Some folks may have a problem with soy lecithin, but I’m not worried about 2 ¼ teaspoons in one pound of butter.

Another ingredient is xanthan gum. You might be thinking, “What the heck is this?” You will probably find it in the list of ingredients in some of your baked goods. It’s basically a thickener and it’s used frequently in gluten-free baking to substitute for gluten. It helps keep oil droplets from sticking together and separating and solid particles from settling to the bottom. In a nutshell, it keeps your mix "mixed." It can be expensive, so look for it in a bulk bin and only buy a few ounces at a time.

Original recipe:

¼ cup + 2 teaspoons soy milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

¼ - ½ teaspoon salt

½ cup + 2 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon refined coconut oil, melted

1 Tablespoon canola oil, safflower oil or sunflower oil

1 teaspoon liquid soy lecithin -or- liquid sunflower lecithin -or- 2 ¼ teaspoons  soy lecithin granules

¼ teaspoon xanthan gum

Directions

1) Place the soy milk, apple cider vinegar, and salt in a small cup and whisk together with a fork. Let it sit for about 10 minutes so the mixture curdles.

2) Melt the coconut oil in a microwave so it's barely melted and as close to room temperature as possible. Measure it and add it and the canola oil to a food processor. Making smooth vegan butter is dependent on the mixture solidifying as quickly as possible after it's mixed. This is why it's important to make sure your coconut oil is as close to room temperature as possible before you mix it with the rest of the ingredients.

3) Add the soy milk mixture, soy lecithin and xanthan gum to the food processor. Process for 2 minutes, scraping down the sides halfway through the duration. Pour the mixture into a mold and place it in the freezer to solidify. (I used a silicone mold so they’d pop out easy.)

The vegan butter should be ready to use in about an hour. Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month or wrapped in plastic wrap in the freezer for up to 1 year. Makes 1 cup (215 grams), or the equivalent of 2 sticks vegan butter.

This recipe created an interesting taste. You can definitely taste the coconut flavor from the oil. It needed a tad more salt, just a pinch. It’s not something I would want to put on bread because of the strong coconut flavor, but you can certainly use it to bake with. The coconut flavor should bake out, especially if you use a strong flavor like cocoa or chocolate chips in the recipe. I’m not sold on the fact that it made one pound of butter. I didn’t weigh it, but visually it looked more than a stick and a half.

Using this recipe, I decided to switch up the oils. I added Safflower and Sunflower. Here’s the new recipe:

¼ cup + 2 teaspoons soy milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons Canola oil

¼ cup Safflower Oil

¼ cup Coconut Oil

1 tsp Sunflower oil

1 teaspoon liquid soy lecithin -or- liquid sunflower lecithin -or- 2 ¼ teaspoons soy lecithin granules (I rounded to 1 Tablespoon of soy lecithin – it’s close enough)

¼ teaspoon xanthan gum

Mix everything together like you did with the other recipe. If you fill your ice cube tray to the top, it will take closer to 2 hours to solidify. I also let my milk mixture “curdle” for longer than 10 minutes as I was in the middle of baking cupcakes. Not sure how much of a difference it made, but it “blobbed” up pretty good in that amount of time.

I have to say I am very happy with this recipe. It is “buttery” tasting but not overpowering. I may still tweak it occasionally until I get it just right. But, this is certainly a decent, and cheaper, stand-in for store bought brands.

*Note: If you’re going to play around with the oils, make sure you pick one that solidifies when cold, otherwise, once your frozen butter softens it will become liquid. Make that oil (such as olive oil) the main oil so that it stays solid when chilled.