Written by Larissa Stanley, a volunteer at Calgary Family Nutrition. For more information, you can see her bio here.
Nothing beats the smell of fresh baking in the house! I think sometimes I choose to bake just so I can come home later and smell the fresh baked goods! Luckily, baking doesn’t need to stop when changing to eating dairy-free.
The two big dairy culprits in most baking are butter and milk.
Butter can be replaced with a few things.
- In muffins, cookies, and bread, replace butter one-to-one, with:
- Oil (like canola or olive).
- Applesauce.
- In cakes, the creaming of the butter and sugar is important for their light and fluffy texture. Consider replacing butter, one-to-one with:
- Dairy-free margarine. Dairy-free
margarines can have different fat contents than butter, so it might be trial and error to find the one that works best for you.
- Dairy-free margarine. Dairy-free
Milk in recipes can vary from regular fluid milk to heavy cream.
- Regular fluid milk can be replaced one-to-one with fortified plant-based beverages.
- Consider the previous post about nutrients in different plant-based beverages when choosing which one to bake with.
- Buy unsweetened non-dairy milk
otherwise your baking will come out much sweeter than expected. - Be aware that different beverages can add different
flavours to your baking. For example, coconut milk will often leave a distinct coconutflavour . This might be a good addition in some baking and not so welcome in others.
- Light cream can be replaced with light-canned coconut milk or non-dairy creamers.
- Heavy cream can be replaced with full-fat coconut milk.
- Make your own buttermilk by adding 1 Tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of non-dairy milk and waiting around 10 minutes.
I find that muffins are the most resilient baked good to try and adjust. If you want to experiment with dairy-free baking, muffins are a good place to start! When making muffins and they always seem to turn out tasty. My
Dairy Free Banana Muffins

Banana muffins made with applesauce.
- 1 3/4 cups Whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup Sugar (white or brown, I have used both!)
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 medium Overripe bananas
- 1/2 cup Unsweetened applesauce (I usually use the prepackaged cups, one is ½ cup)
- Any mix-ins you would like (Nuts, dairy-free chocolate chips etc…)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spray your muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray, or grease with oil (This is important as there is no fat in this recipe so they will stick if you don’t spray!)
- Whisk together applesauce and sugar. Whisk in eggs then add mashed banana. In a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients. Add together and mix well.
Spoon into muffin tins
- Bake for 15 – 20 minutes. (I made mini muffins that were done at about 18 minutes).