Cultured Butter substitute

Best substitute

Regular unsalted butter

Use the same amount as the cultured butter you are replacing

Best for cakes and cookies

Different taste

Standard sweet-cream butter, around 80 percent fat in the US and 82 percent in Europe.

Other cultured butter substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2High-fat European-style butter (uncultured)
Different taste
Use the same amount
Butter at 82 to 84 percent fat that has not been cultured, common in Europe and sold as premium butter in the US.
What changes
Best for
croissants and puff pastry, laminated doughs, shortbread and sable biscuits, buttercream, pan sauces
The best functional match, and the one to choose when the recipe wanted cultured butter for performance rather than flavour. The fat percentage is what actually drives the results bakers care about: less water means croissant layers that stay separate rather than steaming into each other, shortbread that is sandier, and buttercream that is less prone to splitting. It is also more pliable when cold, which makes lamination easier. The only thing missing is the tang, which in a croissant is a fine detail rather than a defining one.
3Butter mashed with creme fraiche or plain yogurt
Different texture
1 tsp creme fraiche or full-fat plain yogurt mashed into every 100g of softened butter
A quick way to put the lactic tang back into ordinary butter.
What changes
Best for
butter for the table, compound and herb butters, shortbread, finishing sauces and vegetables, radishes and bread
Surprisingly convincing where you taste the butter directly, because creme fraiche is exactly the cultured cream that cultured butter is churned from. Mash it into softened butter with a fork until no streaks remain, then chill. Keep the amount small: more than a teaspoon per 100g introduces enough water to make the butter soft and prone to weeping, and it will not behave in pastry. Do not use this version for laminated dough or for frying, where the extra moisture works against you. Use within a few days, as it is now a fresh mixture rather than shelf-stable butter.
4Homemade cultured butter
Close match
makes about 200g butter from 500ml cream
The real thing made at home by souring cream and then churning it.
What changes
Best for
butter for the table, shortbread and biscuits, compound butters, when the tang genuinely matters
Straightforward if you have two days. Stir two tablespoons of live plain yogurt, buttermilk or creme fraiche into 500ml of double or heavy cream, cover, and leave at cool room temperature for 12 to 24 hours until it smells tangy and has thickened. Chill it thoroughly, then whip in a stand mixer or food processor until it breaks into butter grains and liquid, drain, and knead the butter under cold water until the water runs clear. Salt to taste. Wash it properly or the residual buttermilk turns it rancid within days. The flavour is better than most shop-bought cultured butter.
5Salted butter
Different taste
Use the same amount minus ¼ tsp salt per 100g from the recipe
Ordinary salted butter, adjusted for the salt it brings.
What changes
Best for
toast and table butter, cookies and shortbread, savoury cooking, sauces
Perfectly usable, and a good stand-in for cultured butter on bread specifically, because salt gives the butter a flavour lift that partly distracts from the missing tang. In baking you must account for the salt, roughly a quarter teaspoon per 100g, or a shortbread will taste briny. Many cultured butters are themselves salted, sometimes with flaky salt you can feel, so check what your recipe assumed. Texture and fat content are the same as regular butter, so pastry behaves as it would with any standard butter.
6Vegan cultured butter or plain vegan butter
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Plant-based block butter, some brands of which are genuinely cultured with the same bacteria.
What changes
Best for
vegan baking, vegan croissants and pastry, table butter, compound butters
The dairy-free route, and it has improved a lot: several plant butters are cultured, so they carry a real lactic tang rather than an imitation one, and the firm block styles laminate acceptably. What differs is the fat itself, usually coconut and rapeseed oil, which melts at a lower temperature than dairy fat and turns greasy sooner, so keep doughs colder than the recipe says and expect a slightly softer, less snappy shortbread. Use block butter, never a tub spread, which contains too much water for baking.

What is Cultured Butter?

Cultured Butter is Cultured butter, often sold as European-style butter, fermented butter or beurre de baratte, is butter churned from cream that was soured with live bacteria first, which gives it a faint yogurt-like tang, a deeper cooked-cream aroma and usually a higher fat content of around 82 to 86 percent.

Cooking tips

Work out which property the recipe wanted. If it is a croissant, puff pastry or laminated brioche, the useful thing about cultured butter is its higher fat and lower water content, so a high-fat European-style butter is the right swap. If it is shortbread, table butter, compound butter or a finishing sauce, the tang is what you are after, and a teaspoon of creme fraiche mashed into ordinary butter gets closer than a premium uncultured butter will.
Never try to fake the tang with lemon juice or vinegar. Cultured butter's flavour comes from diacetyl and lactic acid produced by fermentation, which taste rounded and creamy; a squeeze of lemon tastes sharp and fruity, and it adds water to butter that should be nearly water-free.
American butter is legally 80 percent fat and most cultured butters are 82 percent or more, so substituting standard American butter into a European recipe adds a little water. In pastry that means slightly less flaky layers; in a cake it means nothing at all. If you want to compensate exactly, use 5 percent less butter and add 5 percent more, by weight, of the recipe's fat elsewhere, though this is rarely worth the effort.
Cultured butter browns faster than regular butter because it contains more milk-solid flavour compounds and less water, which is lovely for brown butter and easy to overshoot. When frying with a substitute, expect to wait a little longer for the nutty stage and to get a slightly less complex result.
If you make your own, wash the butter thoroughly under cold running water, kneading until the water runs completely clear. Leftover cultured buttermilk trapped in the butter is what makes homemade butter turn rancid and cheesy after a few days, and it is the single most common failure.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use regular butter instead of cultured butter?

Yes, one for one, in essentially any recipe. Inside a cake, cookie, sauce or pan of fried onions the difference is undetectable. You will notice it where butter is a main flavour, such as plain shortbread, buttered bread or a compound butter, because you lose the faint yogurt-like tang. In laminated pastry like croissants, the more relevant difference is water content rather than culture, so if you can, choose a butter labelled 82 percent fat or higher rather than standard supermarket butter.

What is the difference between cultured butter and European-style butter?

They overlap but are not the same. Cultured means the cream was fermented with live bacteria before churning, which creates the tang. European-style usually refers to a higher fat content, around 82 to 86 percent versus the American standard of 80 percent. Many European-style butters are also cultured, which is why the terms get used interchangeably, but you can buy uncultured high-fat butter and, less commonly, cultured butter at ordinary fat levels. Check the label for both if the recipe cares.

How do I make cultured butter at home?

Stir two tablespoons of live plain yogurt, buttermilk or creme fraiche into 500ml of double or heavy cream, cover it and leave it at cool room temperature for 12 to 24 hours until it thickens and smells pleasantly tangy. Chill it well, then whip it in a mixer or food processor until it separates into butter and liquid, pour off the buttermilk, and knead the butter under cold running water until the water runs clear. Salt if you like. Washing it properly is what stops it turning rancid.

Can I just leave the cultured butter out?

No, because it is the fat in the recipe, not a seasoning, and fat carries structure, tenderness and browning. What you can do is substitute another fat rather than omitting it: regular butter in nearly all cases, block vegan butter for dairy-free baking, or ghee for frying where the tang is irrelevant. The only recipes where you could leave it out are ones where it appears as an optional finishing knob, in which case the dish will simply taste leaner.

Does cultured butter make a real difference in croissants?

Some, but less than its reputation suggests, and mostly for the wrong reason. The property that matters most in lamination is fat percentage: at 82 to 86 percent fat there is less water to turn to steam and blur the layers, and the butter stays pliable rather than shattering when cold. Any high-fat butter gives you that, cultured or not. The fermented tang adds a subtle depth to the finished pastry, which experienced bakers notice and most eaters do not.

Related substitutes

More dairy substitutes

Cultured Butter substitute

Other cultured butter substitutes

2High-fat European-style butter (uncultured)

3Butter mashed with creme fraiche or plain yogurt

4Homemade cultured butter

5Salted butter

6Vegan cultured butter or plain vegan butter