Dairy substitutes

but as a semi lactose intolerant, I just use the regular whole milk, or powdered milk anyway. I don't find the small amount in a slice of bread that damaging to me, but will never ever use soymilk in anything, or soy anything!

Have read too much on what the soy does and from personal experience don't like it, its worse than the milk to my tummy!

The reason milk is used is to add butter fat to the bread, along with other things, and this makes the bread softer.

If you want to make bread without dairy, then make French or sour dough without any fat, just bread, flour, water and yeast! we ate that every day, as my mother never added milk to her bread, having two kids who didn't like milk, my brother was raised on goats milk, and she always wished she could have had goats when I was little, and I certainly like goats milk over cows, but both are much better fresh from the animal and unpasturized.

I use soy milk all the time without a problem in all my baking. Have never noticed a difference. I even make cream soups with soy milk and they are very good.I'm allergic to milk. I also use coconut oil instead of butter most of the time. Not a vegan but just find I like the taste of the coconut oil and it has some interesting health benefits, surprisingly. I do bake for vegans when we have potlucks during fox hunting season, believe it or not our hunt master is a vegan! No, we don't kill anything and we are very humane. We have a beagle group and chase jack rabbits but never hurt them.

when I can't use milk, grow some with your favorite fruit.   Coconut milk is also an option, also comes in powder.   Great for sauces!

If a person is lactose intolerant they will still be able to handle small amounts of milk, especially higher fat components such as butter or cream. They will be most effected by uncooked skim milk. They will suffer from flatulence and bloating if over imbibing. A person with a true milk allergy needs to stay away from milk entirely as this is more serious, just like a peanut or bee sting allergy. They could suffer from rash or possibly anaphylactic shock. There is another type of allergy to the milk protein, an IGG allergy, which I have. It causes migraines and an "unwell" feeling. It seems to be caused by only one component of the milk. I'm still able to eat hard cheeses and butter but not ricotta, cream cheese, yogurt, etc. This is more confusing but is again an allergy, not a lack of an enzyme, so is an immune problem, not a digestive upset. When cooking for others, if you know somebody is allegic to milk it's important that you make the product truly dairy free, just as you wouldn't use peanut oil in something you are cooking for someone allergic to peanuts. You will find the soy milk, coconut oil to give very satisfactory results in most baking as substitutions. Perhaps something very finicky might not be perfect but i've yet to find anything that didn't turn out well. I haven't tried croissants but I'm sure you could find a work-around, even for something that challenge. Perhaps lard? I do stay away from shortening. Just don't like something that processed in the house. Would rather use lard if I need something with that type of characteristic, say pie crust, for example.

Rice milk, soy milk, they both work just fine in breads .  I avoid soy milk as I'm concerned about the estrogen reaction with soy.  The rice milk is "lighter", it doesn't have the richer mouth feel that soy has, but I use it for bread and soups, even puddings.  I think that if I don't expect it to exactly duplicate milk, but end up with a very tasty result, I'm  happy.  It is deilcious but not exactly the same thing.

I just can't find a suitable substitute for evaporated milk in pumpkin pie!

As for butter, I sub Earth's best margerine (probably still not a great choice health-wise) and canola oil and applesauce where that will work.

Marni

I use So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk for all my baking/cooking needs. It's the only milk that doesn't leave an aftertaste. I tried unsweetened almond milk but I still felt like some of that natural sweetness came through.

Hope that helps!

Good suggestions here.

I used coconut milk in rolls I made yesterday and I have to say while it made the rolls very soft I am not fond of the taste at all. I did feel that it had a slight coconut flavour, but not in a pleasant way. Sort of greasy coconuty aftertaste.

However, I also used coconut milk instead of yoghurt in a naan bread recipe and it worked perfectly, so I wouldn't say I'm against coconut milk in bread in general. Just that I think you should probably not make a bread with nearly ALL the liquid as coconut milk.

Soya milk doesn't flavour things much, but if using, keep in mind it is not quite as fatty as whole milk.

Soya cream can also be used as a cream substitute and I have found it usually works well.

Vegan margarine works perfectly well as a butter substitute- the sunflower oil kind is a bit better than the soya kind.

I have actually made good challah before without any dairy products, using vegan egg replacer and vegan margarine.

Soya yoghurt also makes a good substitute for regular yoghurt, and is probably as close as you can get to buttermilk. Avoid the sweet kind though.

The only way I've found to get a shiny crusy using vegan products is using a glaze of soya cream.