How to make recipes without milk or cream
Do you use milk or cream in your recipes? 🥛 Thanks to the B·Concept method and understanding very well what we use each ingredient of a classic recipe for, we are able to redesign and adapt them to our needs.
Dairy products are basic ingredients that have been used in traditional pastries for ages and we often think that they are absolutely essential in most recipes. However, nowadays we have many options available that allow us to make milk and cream free recipes, and we want to explain to you what they are.
The dairy flavor or color can be interesting in some cases, but sometimes they may also alter or mask the flavor of the main ingredient. It is easy to replace milk with plant-based drinks, water or fruit juice, since milk is, in fact, 97% water. Of course, this is only possible in recipes where we are not counting on the emulsifying capacity of milk.
As for the cream, in preparations where we use it for the creamy and full-bodied sensation, we can replace it with coconut milk.
What about mousses? In this case, the whipped cream helps us incorporate air into the recipe, but we could easily replace it with a 🍦 meringue, as long as we don't need the fat in the cream to obtain the desired texture.
When cream is used for its emulsifying or gelling capacity and a better consistency—such as in crème anglaise or flan—we need to introduce additional ingredients that help us emulsify, thicken or gel our recipe. These could be lecithin or egg.
And what do milk and its derivatives offer us at a nutritional level? They are usually a good source of protein, calcium and vitamin B. However, the nutrients and benefits they provide us can also be found in other foods, meaning it is not essential to consume dairy products. What’s more, nearly 68 % of the world’s population has trouble digesting lactose (the sugar present in milk).
In the Extended Online B·Concept Pastry Course, we explain in detail the importance of understanding the ingredients we work with every day. By knowing your ingredients, you will be able to master texture creating techniques, learn to formulate your own recipes from scratch and end up making healthier, lighter and tastier recipes.
If you feel like digging a little deeper into this topic, we leave you with our masterclass on “How to use dairy in pastry recipes”.
