Are you missing an ingredient or two for your recipe? Some ingredients can easily be substituted and produce almost the same delicious result.

 

Breadcrumbs
Crumble a few slices of dry or not quite fresh bread, preferably in a blender. Fresh bread dries out quickly if you toast it or put it in the microwave for a few seconds and leave it to cool. This makes it easier to crumble. It is best to air dry the bread a few hours before baking or cooking.

Butter
Instead of butter, normal margarine or vegetable fat is often sufficient. If melted butter is required, oil will also do. Olive oil has too strong a flavour of its own. Sunflower oil or nut oils are more suitable as a butter substitute.

Buttermilk
Mix ordinary milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar and leave to rest for a few minutes.

Cream
Mix seven eighths of whole milk well with a teaspoon of butter or replace the same amount of cream with condensed milk. Of course, this only works for recipes with liquid cream and does not replace whipped cream.

Cocoa
Grate the milk chocolate and reduce the amount of fat in the recipe by one teaspoon.

Condensed milk
Mix the whole milk with three quarters of the amount of milk and sugar. Heat and stir in two tablespoons of butter until the butter has melted.

Cornflour, thickener or sauce thickener
Stir two tablespoons of flour into a little water until smooth and bring to the boil briefly with the liquid to be thickened.

Egg
One egg can be replaced by two tablespoons of mayonnaise, but this only works with some batter.

Icing sugar
100g icing sugar is equivalent to 75g granulated sugar. The sugar can be ground into icing sugar in a blender.

Sugar
100g white sugar can be replaced with 75g maple syrup or honey. The amount of liquid in the recipe may need to be reduced by two to three tablespoons.

Whole milk
Mix the semi-skimmed or skimmed milk with one or two teaspoons of butter.

Natural yoghurt
100g natural yoghurt can be replaced with 100g buttermilk, cottage cheese or sour cream.