Ask a Vegan Baker

Hello,

After reading Daniel-san's post regarding margarine vs. oil and delving deeper into puff pastry territory I've been thinking about what it would take to develop a margarine from a custom blend of solid fats. Has anyone experimented with this before? I'd love to get away from the habit of purchasing margarine from a company that I think may not be getting palm kernel oil in the most environmentally respectful manner. And also because I'm a total food geek and it would be a fun experiment.

I'm thinking something along the lines of cocoa butter, coconut oil with some water added and emulsified with possibly soy lecithin and arrowroot flour. I may add nutritional yeast flakes and a touch of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar for flavor depth. Vegan By Nature looks to have done this already but I'm not sure how it would hold up in puff pastry. I'm guessing not too well because it appears to be a tub margarine- a definite no no in the puff pastry world.

The issue I can see myself getting into is, unlike margarine and butter, both coconut oil and cocoa butter don't melt slowly. They melt at lower temperatures than palm kernel oil and they melt immediately. I'm hoping that using a blend of these oils emulsified in some water may change this if I'm lucky but I'm not sure.

Ideas?