Sugar and Dairy-free Baking

Lactose Intolerance and Milk Allergy

One reason someone would be interested in dairy-free baking would be if they were either lactose intolerant or if they had a milk allergy. If you are lacking the enzyme lactase, you will not be able to digest the milk sugar lactose. This is what is known as lactose intolerance.

There are a few ways to address this condition. One way is to take lactase supplements. Lactase is the enzyme that your body needs to successfully digest milk and dairy products. Another way is to just not use milk or milk products in your cooking, but to go this rout you will need to find a substitute.

If you have a milk allergy, your immune system is exhibiting an aberrant response to milk. In either case, if you are having a negative response to milk and milk products you may want to just avoid them altogether.

Dairy Free Baking

As we know, fat, including milk and dairy products, is added to recipes for several reasons: flavor, texture (flakiness, crumb), mouth feel, and viscosity. We also know that any fat or oil can be used for laminated dough. So although butter would be the classic option, you could substitute vegetable shortening with good results. In fact, vegetable shortening will often result in a flakier pastry than butter.

If you are really motivated, you can find specially formulated margarines. These are margarines made just for use in baking Danish and another that's made just for use in baking puff pastry. The only drawback with using either these specialty margarines or vegetable shortening in your pastries is that the butter flavor would be missing and the mouth feel will be much different. Shortening doesn’t melt at mouth temperature like butter does. Instead, shortening will stay solid at mouth temperature and results in a waxy residue in the mouth. Flavored options are achieved by using milk solids in margarines and shortenings, so if you want to avoid dairy you might want to avoid the flavored shortenings.

In order to avoid milk, you can use soymilk as a substitute. The only draw back with using soymilk is that it is missing the fat content of milk, so some recipes that rely on that fat content, like pudding, will not have the same consistency.

Sugar Free Baking

If you are looking to do some sugar and dairy-free baking, you will need to use honey, a natural sweetener, or an artificial sweetener. If you are interested in using a natural option in place of white refined sugar, you may want to consider honey, agave syrup, or fructose as viable options. While most people are familiar with honey, agave syrup and fructose might not be as familiar. Let's explore them.

• Agave Syrup: Sometimes known as agave nectar, this sweetener is made from any of the species of agave, even the type that is used to make tequila. The substitution ration would be 1/3 cup of agave syrup for one cup of sugar.

• Fructose: Generally twice as sweet as sugar, fructose is popular with diabetics because it doesn’t affect blood sugar as dramatically as sugar does.

If you are just looking to remove the sugar from the recipe but not concerned about keeping the recipe natural, there are several artificial sweeteners that you could use.

Sugar and Dairy Free Baking

Vegetarian and vegan recipes are a great place to start looking for dairy free recipes. With just a small substitution you can create your own sugar and dairy-free recipes. Just bear in mind that when you are removing the dairy products from your recipe, you will have to replace the missing fat.

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