Here's What Happens If You Use Margarine Instead Of Real Butter When Baking

There's a few reasons you might want to use margarine instead of butter when baking: Perhaps you're vegan, or you just want to cut back on saturated fats in your diet (of which butter has plenty). But, if you're making that swap, be warned that you'll get different results in terms of both taste and texture.

For taste, it's pretty straightforward: Butter has a richer, creamier taste than margarine — after all, it's made with cream. Margarine is made with vegetable oils, and similar to how olive oil has more flavor than your standard vegetable cooking oils, margarine just doesn't add that flavor like butter does. For this reason, a lot of experienced cooks are firm about sticking to butter, although the difference won't stand out as much in recipes with lots of other flavors, such as a bake with chocolate.

As for the form or texture of baked goods, the impact of margarine varies a bit depending on what you're baking. Generally speaking, baked goods made with margarine have a softer texture. With cookies, you can expect them to be thinner and they'll flatten out more on the tray as they're baking. They' won't crisp and brown so much, either (a bonus if you like softer cookies). For cake recipes, you can expect margarine to yield a lighter, fluffier cake (a possible benefit in recipes like sponges) that's also lighter in color. For pie crust, margarine won't give a flaky texture, so it's sometimes considered a poor choice.

The reason why margarine makes these lighter, thinner, and chewier cakes and cookies mostly comes down to its chemical composition. Margarine is more or less just vegetable oil emulsified in water, and it's the water content that affects baked goods. That water makes cookie dough spread out when it's heated in the oven. The saturated fat in butter also holds its form better — even if you get margarine that's as fatty as butter, the lack of saturated fat can still be noticeable. All of this said, margarine often works solidly as a substitute for butter, usually on a one-to-one basis. Recipes that explicitly call for margarine should ideally take these differences into account. 

In any case, pay attention to the type of margarine you're using. You'll want to avoid any margarine that's labeled as a "spread": These have under 80% fat content and have more water in them. Without enough fat, they can dry out and get tough, so you want to stay above that 80% fat level (legally speaking, anything labeled "margarine" should have at least 80% fat, per FDA rules). There are also various in-between products like spreadable butter, which has added oil, and "butter-like" products, such as I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, which can contain dairy — both products may give some degree of margarine-like effects in bakes.