Butter is a key ingredient in almost every field of cooking that you’ll find. Appetizers, main courses, desserts. Even snacks and drinks are often unable to escape.
This makes butter pretty much indispensable for any cook, chef, food enthusiast, or frankly anyone’s pantry.
That also makes it very difficult to find recipes that don’t use this dairy product!
Fortunately, while tricky, it is possible to create meals that don’t use this often taken-for-granted ingredient.
In this guide, we are going to show some of these recipes, specifically showing you the best butter-free desserts that you can make.
Remember, butter isn’t irreplaceable. As we’ll soon see, it just takes time and preparation to do so!
1. Depression Cake
Okay, it’s not exactly the most cheerful way to start a list of tasty recipes.
But rest assured, this dish will have you feeling anything but depressed once you bite into it!
Also known as ‘wacky cakes’ (a name so much more cheerful, we are kind of wondering why we didn’t stick that in the title), this type of cake is a perfect dish to try out if you are testing the water with no butter r dairy desserts you want to eat.
With no eggs or butter in sight with this dish, it will soon become an easy go-to for any dessert you need to prep for a meal.
Plus, if you add coffee instead of water, you can get a nice coffee cake out of this recipe too!
2. Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Moving away from one butter-free staple to another, cookie dough ice cream might just be one of the most popular flavors out there. If only you could make some of this amazingly creamy dessert without any of that pesky butter…
But wait, you can!
With this dish, peanut butter will be the primary flavor of choice in this dish, and will become an instant favorite with kids and grown-ups alike!
3. Vegan Oreo Cheesecake
Who doesn’t love Oreos? And who doesn’t love cheesecake? Combine them, take out any sugar, and you’re left with a dessert recipe that won’t just be popular with people allergic to dairy, but everyone, full stop!
Oreos are perhaps some of the most popular cookies to include in recipes, even dairy-free ones.
And with no butter, milk, or even cream cheese in sight for this dish, you’ll soon find that it is a phenomenal cheesecake in its own right!
4. Egg White Brownies
Ah yes, the humble brownie. A favorite of dinner tables and campouts the world over. Pretty much everyone loves brownies.
However, because butter often functions in cooking the same way that oil does, you can often find that replacing the former with the latter creates an incredible brownie recipe too!
Just make sure that you add a little extra salt to your brownie mix while you are preparing this for your baking tin.
Butter also handily contains plenty of salt for recipes like this, so you’ll need to accommodate this fact if you want to avoid making your brownies too bitter.
5. Sugar Cookies
If you’re looking for cookie recipes that don’t use butter in them, you can sometimes find yourself struggling to find ingredients that will hold your batter and other ingredients together.
However, this sugar cookie dish is a very popular dish that has been around for decades at this point.
And with sweet flavors and crumbly textures like this, we are not surprised!
6. Dairy-Free Brownies
With brownies being such a popular dessert across the world, is it any surprise that there would be more than one recipe for these amazing little treats?
With a texture that is just as smooth and fudge-like as its dairy equivalent, these brownies are certainly up to the high bar that traditional brownies set when it comes to how they feel to eat.
And, of course, they taste incredible too!
7. Chocolate Brownie Cookies
Okay, we know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh no, not another brownie recipe!’
But what if we told you that these particular brownies taste like an amazing combination of both the aforementioned baked good and cookies at the same time?
It is a tough combination to pull off, for sure, but this recipe does so masterfully.
Plus, it’s even vegan-friendly too! What’s not to love about it?
8. Old-Fashioned Whoopie Pie
Whoopie pies are a staple dessert in households across the country since they were first made in the 1830s, so they must be doing something right if they’ve been this popular for almost 200 years!
The batter for these cookies will be smooth when making it but trust us. These cookies will harden nicely once they’ve been in the oven for a while!
9. Dairy-Free Cupcakes & Frosting
Who doesn’t love a good cupcake? They’re practically the king of confectionaries!
However, like pretty much any kind of cake batter, traditional cupcakes all rely heavily on butter to start mixing.
Thankfully, this recipe manages to do away with that pesky dairy product, meaning that even dairy-allergic folks will finally be able to enjoy this amazing super snack!
10. Blueberry Coffee Cake
Coffee cake is a pretty difficult recipe to pull off at the best of times, let alone when trying to do it without one of the core ingredients.
However, this dairy-free alternative, complete with fresh blueberries to boot, might just be one of the easiest dairy-free cakes to make out there.
Whether it’s a hearty breakfast meal, a snack for lunch, or an after-dinner treat, this cake is perfect for all meals!
Plus, this cake is even gluten-free to boot, so there’s no excuse to not try and bake this cake for yourself at least!
11. 3-Ingredient No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies
Oatmeal cookies are a very popular cookie recipe for people who are already looking to try and avoid the more unhealthy ingredients in these baked goods, without sacrificing that distinct texture and taste that they have.
And with this recipe, you’ll find that you won’t just be able to cut out regular flour from your favorite cookie dishes, but also even take the dairy out of your favorite cookie recipes!
12. Pumpkin Blondies
Pumpkin blondies have always been a favorite sweet treat for bakers to make if they are avoiding dairy products, so it is a no-brainer that we thought that a recipe like this would be welcome on this list!
These blondies are quite like brownies in their texture and recipe instructions, so try to picture the other brownie recipes we’ve covered when making this dish for yourself!
13. Lime Bars
Alongside pumpkin blondies, lime and lemon bars have long been a staple of many dairy-allergic people’s sweet palettes and cookbooks.
While we chose to show lime bars in this recipe list, keep in mind that lemon bars are made in almost the same way, so just replace your lime-based ingredients with lemon to see what the alternative might taste like.
You’ll be surprised how different these two dishes taste!
14. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Once again, we return to the delicious world of cookies for this next dish.
You know the drill at this point: Butter can be replaced in your cookie dough with oil, so you won’t have to worry about causing any reactions in your friends and family.
What’s honestly more impressive is the dairy-free and vegan-friendly chocolate chips that this recipe includes!
15. Vegan Chocolate Pudding
It almost seems crazy that we’re able to create chocolate recipes now that no longer need chocolate in them whatsoever.
And yet here we are, with a delightfully smooth chocolate pudding dish that is just as good as any dairy-filled alternative out there!
Plus, with a preparation time of fewer than 25 minutes, you’ll have a recipe that can be prepared in next to no time, something that a lot of dairies and butter-free dishes can often struggle with.
16. Dairy & Gluten-Free Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Chocolate zucchini bread is one of those dishes that surprisingly few people have tried for themselves, but are almost always popular when they are brought out to the table.
So, imagine the look on your guest’s faces when you whip out this amazing dish as a dessert!
Well, maybe confusion as to what exactly it is at first. But once they’ve tried a bite, that curiosity will quickly turn into delight!
17. Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies
Peanut butter blossoms are like a peanut buttercup and a cookie has a baby, and this was the delicious result!
And, of course, this tasty little cookie is butter-free at the same time!
The trick with this dish is making sure that the peanut butter that you add is as smooth as possible allowing the filling to melt in your mouth as you bite into one of these cookies.
18. Banana Cream Vegan Pie
Banana cream pie? Already a winning recipe in our books.
A vegan-friendly version of the dish that still tastes amazing? Now that’s something special that needs to be shared!
Considering that it is, again, a dairy-free cream pie here, that’s got to be some witchcraft involved!
But nope! Just the right ingredients and a good recipe!
19. Snickerdoodle Cookies
Snickerdoodle cookies are an easy dessert of candy cookies to whip up for the perfect snack later on. So why should dairy-intolerant people have to miss out on a tasty snack?
Plus, the coconut oil used in this dish is noticeably healthier than its normal counterparts!
20. Dairy-Free Cinnamon Rolls
Now, this is an impressive dish! Whoever managed to turn one of the best pastries out there into a dairy-free friendly dish deserves a medal!
Using almond milk and coconut oil to make the pastry dough here, this particular dessert is just as dreamy to eat as the traditional dairy version!
21. Vegan Chocolate Pudding
Once again, some madman managed to make a chocolate pudding recipe that was devoid of all dairy products!
Just as smooth as a traditional chocolate pudding, you’ll be begging for second helpings!
22. Gumdrop Cookies
If you’re looking to make a more colorful cookie in your desserts, then you should take a look at this dish!
For our money, the coconut oil allows the dough to shorten better, making it less likely to lose its shape and melt in the oven as it bakes.
23. Raspberry Crumb Bars
Raspberry crumble is an absolute treat at any dinner table.
So obviously a similar recipe that is not just vegan-friendly, but also portable is going to make the list of best non-butter-based dishes!
24. Spiced Applesauce Cake
If we’re talking about classy cake dishes that use no better, we can’t forget about applesauce cakes.
Packed with sweet spongy cake, and, of course, having no butter, this is a recipe that you need to try at least once!
25. One-Bowl No Butter Chocolate Cake
Finally, if you want to avoid making a mess with your cake batter, look no further than this amazing dish!
Frequently Asked Questions
You may have noticed that many of the desserts that we have listed aren’t just considered butter-free, but are also dairy-free or even vegan recipes.
This is because, despite it being presented in a very different form, butter is still a dairy product, which means that it does contain lactose in it, making it unsafe for dairy-allergic people to eat food that is prepared with butter.
As a general rule for your recipe searches, remember that when a recipe is considered dairy-free, it also means that the recipe will contain no butter, so feel free to include those types of recipes in your searches!
When looking at the ingredient lists of these recipes, it is very easy to see why some people might see dairy or butter-free desserts as being healthier than their dairy counterparts.
It’s not an incorrect view necessarily, either. Many dairy desserts contain not just dairy, but also plenty of sugars, transfats, and cholesterol too.
While these nutrients are not necessarily dangerous on their own, and some can be helpful towards having a balanced diet, excessive eating of foods with these in them can be linked to weight gain, higher blood pressure, bloating, and a long list of other health issues that can build up over time.
Just remember to keep an eye on the other ingredients that these dairy-free alternative desserts have. Many still contain high amounts of sugar still, which has been linked to issues such as gum disease, higher blood pressure, and diabetes, among others.
Another unexpected bonus of butter and dairy-free recipes that you may find is how long your desserts will last.
Dairy generally tends to spoil quite quickly when not kept at room temperature, including foods that use butter as an ingredient. Not having butter as an ingredient allows these desserts to stay fresh and edible for a little longer.
Take dairy-free cakes, for example. While a standard cake that has been stored right will usually only last 3 to 4 days, dairy-free equivalents will often last up to five days.
And if you used oil in your recipe, it may last up to a week in the right conditions!
So you may find that you want to cook butter-free desserts anyway, just so your amazing bakes will last longer!
Final Thoughts
So, as you can see, while perhaps sometimes trickier to make, butter-free dessert recipes are not hard to find.
Just follow the guidelines, mix well, and your butter-free dishes will come out beautifully!
Now, which recipe will you start with?
25 Butter-Free Desserts You Can Try
Ingredients
Directions
- Pick a recipe from above
- Click the recipe name and visit the website
- Collect the ingredients and the food
- Enjoy – don’t forget to leave a review
Recipe Video
Cooking is great for your mental, physical, and emotional health. What’s the worst that could happen? Find a recipe that you like the sound of and cook it along with me. You might even unlock a new passion!
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