These Fake Oils Are Actually Good
The 90s were dark times for fat, but I remember those were especially dark times for butter. The ominous I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray bottle was a constant presence in my childhood kitchen, and I used the milky yellow liquid both as cooking oil and as a flavoring. My grandmother still cooked with bacon fat, but Country Crock replaced butter as the filling. It was ugly.
But the world of dairy-free substitutes has evolved, and new types of artificial butter have appeared in the city. There are European-style cultured vegan Miyoko butter (made from fermented cashew cream) and plant-based Melt Organic that claim to taste like real butter, too.
I love the cashew based artificial cheese and loved the packaging of the Melt products, so I bought them both along with the old Smart Balance and Earth Balance standards. Their first test was simple: they had to be eaten on a simple piece of French bread so that the taste and mouthfeel could be properly appreciated.
I tried Miyoko’s first because I was thrilled when I tried cashew butter, which was not actually cashew butter (at least not in the sense that peanut butter is peanut butter). It was obtained in a block, very similar to the fashionable fermented milk butter. I unrolled it. It was not like butter, but like the dirty white clay of Skulpi, which, as it turned out, also greatly influenced my upbringing. Straight out of the fridge, it spreads more easily than butter, like non-dairy products of this kind, but not as easily as something like Country Crock.
Then the time has come for the truth.
Reader, if no one had told me that these were cashews, I would not have known right away. It was creamy, slightly salty, with that yoghurt flavor that is usually found with fermented milk butter. I ate some bread and butter and then went back to Miyoko for comparison. The dairy products were richer, with a fattier aftertaste, but not by much. Miyoko finished a little cleaner, reminding me of yogurt again. I was impressed. I ate two more bites, then remembered to try more fake butter.
Then I tried Melt, which was in the bathtub and looked almost identical to every other oil substitute I have dealt with. It lacked the cultured flavor and melted too quickly in the mouth, but it tasted like cheap dairy butter with a very light vegetable oil-like aftertaste.
Then I tried Earth Balance and Smart Balance and was terrified. Compared to Miyoko’s and Melt, their synthetic aftertaste stood out as positively aggressive.
Needless to say, neither Earth nor Smart Scales made it to the second round – the toast test. (It was actually fried bread, but try-by-toast is more fun to type.) Both claimed they melted and browned like “real” butter, so I spread more French bread on them, lit a skillet, and each cooked a few minutes on each side until golden brown and crispy (see photo above; Miyoko’s above, melt below). It took both of them a little longer to brown than real butter, but once they were browned, they were virtually indistinguishable from bread fried in butter. Pair it with Field Roast’s Vegan Chao Slices and you’ve got the grilled vegan cheese that will cheat the most (though maybe not everyone).
When used as a vegetable oil, the subtleties between Miyoko’s and Melt are lost, but considering they were the same price at my local grocery store, I would pick the first Miyoko’s, which is another win for fermented cashews. I love it so much that I might not share it with my vegan friends, although I will preach a good word about cultivated cashews. (I think my lactose intolerant boyfriend might eat them.)