Baking Delia's cakes in India!

Asked on 15 Jan 2020 by Meenal

Hello Lindsey,
I have the book Delia’s Cakes. She uses spreadable butter in many of her recipes but I only have regular white block butter. How much regular white block butter should I use for every 100 gms of spreadable butter?
Also, what can I substitute evaporated milk with? I don’t get it easily here in India. We do get sweetened condensed milk though.
Please help.
Thank you,
Warmly,
Meenal Jhala

Lindsey, Food Editor replied

Hello Meenal Jhala,

You can use an equal weight of regular block butter instead of spreadable butter in any of Delia’s recipes, as long as it has been left out of the fridge long enough so that it feels soft. In Britain most of the time it takes a while for the butter to soften, so the advantage of using ‘softened’ butter for us is that it can be used straight from the fridge. I expect in India that it’s not going to take very long for block butter to soften so you won’t have the same issues.

Choosing Fats for Cakes

Evaporated milk is milk that is cooked gently so that it reduces. Condensed milk is sweetened. What you use instead of evaporated milk is going the vary depending of each recipe. If you want to ask about a specify recipe, I’m happy to respond as and when.

Best wishes

Lindsey