Updated 15 September 2026: We originally wrote this as a deliberately opinionated butter-versus-margarine piece. The baking preferences are still ours; the nutrition section has been corrected to reflect current UK heart-health guidance and to remove claims that went beyond the evidence.
Butter vs margarine: the baking debate
For bakers, butter, margarine and oil are not interchangeable ingredients. They contain different proportions of fat and water, behave differently at different temperatures and produce different flavours and textures. The right choice depends first on the recipe you are making.
What current UK health guidance actually says
Butter is high in saturated fat. The British Heart Foundation and NHS advise limiting saturated fat and, where possible, replacing some saturated fat with unsaturated fat. Most modern margarines and spreads are made mainly from vegetable oils and generally contain substantially less saturated fat than butter.
The old version of this article also suggested that shoppers in the UK should expect trans fats in margarine. That is not a fair description of modern products. Older margarines could contain industrial trans fats from partial hydrogenation; the British Heart Foundation says modern margarines are made using different processes and that trans fats are not a reason to avoid them.
That does not make one spread universally “good” and another universally “bad”. All fats are energy-dense, recipes and overall diets differ, and individual medical or dietary needs should be discussed with an appropriately qualified professional.
We have also removed claims that butter improves cholesterol, protects heart health or provides clinically meaningful benefits from CLA. Those claims were too broad for the evidence and were not appropriate in a bakery article.
What matters in a cake
Butter in sponge cakes
Butter brings a distinctive dairy flavour and can produce a tender crumb in recipes designed around it. Because it is solid at typical room temperature, its behaviour is very different from liquid oil.
Margarine and spreads in sponge cakes
Margarine or baking spread can work very well in recipes developed for it. Check the product's fat and water content and follow a tested recipe rather than assuming a direct one-for-one swap will behave identically.
Oil in sponge cakes
For many of our sponge recipes, we actually prefer oil. It stays liquid at room temperature and can help a cake remain soft. Its neutral flavour also lets ingredients such as vanilla or cocoa do the talking. Our Hero Sponge Recipe is oil-based.
Butter in buttercream
For our style of buttercream, real butter gives the flavour and texture we want. That is a culinary preference, not a health claim. Different frostings and dairy-free recipes may be designed around different fats.
Plant-based alternatives
Plant-based butters and spreads vary widely in ingredients, fat percentage, water content and flavour. If you are baking for someone with an allergy or intolerance, check the ingredient and allergen information on the exact product every time; “plant-based” does not automatically mean free from every allergen. Soya and nuts, for example, may appear in some products.
For vegan baking, use a recipe developed for the ingredients you intend to use rather than making an untested direct swap. Our Vegan Hero Sponge recipe is oil-based.
So which do we choose?
In the bakery, we choose fats for the result we want in a particular recipe. We love butter for flavour in buttercream and use oil in many sponges. That is the useful part of this debate for us: not crowning a nutritional winner, but understanding what each ingredient does.
Sources
British Heart Foundation — Margarine vs butter: which is healthier?
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