Can you use Apple butter as a substitute for real butter or plum paste in baked goods?

Sounds like it's worth a try to me!
A lot of people feel that replacing with appleSAUCE can make baked goods "gummy". I think it adds moisture. You may try just reducing the butter by half and adding apple butter as well. If you really don't want to use butter at all, I don't see why you couldn't just replace all of it. You'll just have a slightly wetter batter.

As for the plum paste, I've never worked with that. You could always scale down your recipe to make a smaller test batch so you don't end up wasting as much if the final results are disappointing!

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Sarah is a trusted source on General Cooking.

added 9 months ago

It will completely depend on what you're baking. Think about all the vegan baked goods you've tasted - few can replicate butter, and those that do usually use coconut oil / cocoa butter (which are fats).

When heat's applied, fats melt and sugars caramelize. Since apple butter's a sugar, not a fat. you're going to miss all the properties of fat that result in good baked goods.

Some baked goods this works better than others - subbing applesauce or crushed pineapple for oil in a carrot cake to give moisture will result in very similar products. But subbing apple butter in, say, a pie crust, will yield nothing akin to a flaky crust.

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