We recently made these brownies to bring to a “Jaws” movie party. We topped them each with smattering of vanilla buttercream icing and a Swedish fish candy & affectionately named them “minnow brownies”. They were a hit. But I digress…
We always have baking essentials on hand (butter, eggs, flour, sugar, baking chocolate, etc.) so I don’t often think twice about ingredients until I pull down a baking book & start to gather them up by the armful.
Here are two pantry substitutions (plus a bonus!) we used successfully in the above recipe.
- Unsweetened baker’s chocolate: We had 4 ounces and the recipe called for 6. For each ounce of baker’s chocolate, we substituted 3 TBS of unsweetened cocoa power & 1 TBS of oil. We used canola but any vegetable oil will do (except for olive oil!).
- Butter: We only had enough for the buttercream icing so in the brownie recipe, for the butter, we substituted 1 cup of shortening and 2 TBS of water for 1 cup of butter.
Another helpful substitution/DIY ingredient we’ve made in the past is buttermilk. Make your own buttermilk by adding 1 TBS of apple cider vinegar, white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of milk. This can also be successfully done with soy milk as Jess did her Vegan Irish Soda Bread recipe last month.
What’s your favorite baking or cooking ingredient substitution?
sippetsandsharpies 
Great tips! I didn’t know you could sub cocoa powder plus oil for unsweetened chocolate. Thanks! I’d say my most frequent substitution is the buttermilk trick you mentioned.
@emmycooks: thanks for your comment! let us know if you think of any other substitutions as you’re baking your next creation. 🙂