I'm used to baking with butter (or in the rare cases that I've made vegan cake I got vegan margarine that on its label announced it as okay for baking). However butter prices being what they are (they are up to €1.05 as the cheapest for 250g again here -- food prices suck), I've been considering to substitute margarine, but the cheap non-vegan baking margarines have dubiously long ingredient lists, presumably to simulate butter taste and consistency. And of course there is the trans-fat prone hardening process issue that can come with margarines. (And the less scary vegan ones tend to cost about the same as butter or even more.)
So I've been wondering whether I could just use the neutral, no-frills vegetable fat you buy in cheap blocks as substitute for part of the butter, say half-half, and let some taste come from real butter, but cheaper as you'd only use half as much, and circumvent the whole margarine issue. That fat is just naturally hard fat with no other stuff in it, the kind you use for frying if you want hot temperatures. But then I wondered about the dough consistency and baking properties that would follow, as of course margarine is usually only about 80% fat with the rest water (same as butter I think) and softer at room temperature.
I mean, the problem of softening it enough could work through melting it at a low temperature, depending on the cake recipe I often do that with the butter anyway, but maybe you then would still need to add a bit less of the pure fat and more liquid to simulate the percentages.
Maybe I should just experiment and see whether the results are edible, but surely that kind of thing has been tried by many people, since it's not as if high butter prices are a new phenomenon?
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