What is the difference between sour cream & butter in baked goods?
I'm a little unsure what the difference is between the two. I found a banana bread recipe that specifically called for the use of sour cream for the batter as opposed to butter; the same applied when I looked for other recipes for banana bread.
Is there a difference between the two? How does sour cream affect the baked good as opposed to butter? Is there a difference or is it simply just to make the flavor richer, which is what I'm guessing the reason for adding it is in for.
Best Answer
The difference is that they're two completely different ingredients and serve different purposes.
Butter is 81 grams fat per 100 grams - or about 80% fat.
Sour cream is only 20 grams fat per 100 grams - about 20%.
In a quick bread like banana bread, recipes often call for fat in the form of oil, not butter, which is almost pure fat. Either way, these recipes need to add moisture (much like a cake batter) and sour cream has lots of moisture and, additionally, adds a slight tang. So, recipes usually call for a combination of butter or oil and some sort of wet ingredient like sour cream, milk, yogurt or buttermilk.
The more appropriate substitution comparisons would be either:
Why sour cream vs yogurt vs milk vs buttermilk?
From Baking Illustrated Banana Bread, page 23:
We still wanted more moisture in the bread, so we tried mixing in milk, buttermilk, sour cream, and plain yogurt. Sour cream added richness to our bread, but it also made for a heavy texture and an unattractive, pebbly crust. Milk added little flavor and created a slick crust. Buttermilk added a delightful tang, but yogurt let the banana flavor stand out. And because yogurt has more solids than buttermilk, it made for a somewhat more solid loaf, which we preferred.
As a note, their final recipe uses both melted butter and yogurt.
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Quick Answer about "What is the difference between sour cream & butter in baked goods?"
Butter contains very little lactose (a sugar) whereas sour cream tends to contain 3-4w% of lactose. This will make a recipe with sour cream instead of butter brown a little faster in the oven! That said, the low acidity of sour cream will slow down the browning reaction again!What does sour cream do in baking?
Baking with Sour Cream: The creamy texture of sour cream makes baked goods more moist than if you used milk. This makes sour cream an excellent choice for recipes that are known to have drier results, like sponge cakes.Can you substitute sour cream for butter in baking?
Using sour cream in a recipe may seem kind of gross, but it's actually just like using Greek yogurt. You can use it to replace half of the butter in your recipe and it's a great way to use up your sour cream before it goes bad.What does sour cream replace in baking?
There are several good dairy options for replacing sour cream, including Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, cr\xe8me fra\xeeche and buttermilk.- Greek Yogurt. Greek yogurt makes an excellent stand-in for sour cream. ...
- Cottage Cheese. This cheese has a rich history. ...
- Cr\xe8me Fra\xeeche. Cr\xe8me fra\xeeche literally means fresh cream. ...
- Buttermilk.
Sour cream, crema, crème fraîche: what's the difference?
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