AHi I have an order for dairy free tractor shaped cake can I use my normal recipe and replace butter and milk with soya milk or water and a dairy free butter ?

Hmm. Box mixes, at least of the retail grocery variety, seem to be dairy-free, these days. They generally call for water, cooking oil, and eggs, but no milk or butter.

 

When I did the Leland Awards cake last year, I provided a dairy-free cupcake for a fellow docent with a severe dairy allergy (yes, she's cute, but she's also married, as well as being young enough to be my daughter); all I had to do was replace the maple-cinnamon BC I made for the main cake with a maple-cinnamon glaze.

 

Earlier, on the "wood type cookies" project, I made a dairy-free batch, substituting Earth Balance dairy-free margarine for my usual 50/50 mix of butter and conventional margarine.

AI suggest doing a test run with the substituted ingredients to make sure the recipe works the same way. You will also need to ensure all your other ingredients have not been contaminated with dairy at the manufacturing site (e.g. shared equipment), if the manufacturer makes other products containing dairy it's best to contact them to see if you are comfortable with their cleaning processes. Avoid whey and casein as well.

All non-porous surfaces and equipment should be thoroughly sanitized, and if a porous surface has touched dairy it should be considered permanently contaminated.

AI also mu

I also have a dairy allergy and bake quite well without it:) you must make sure that you follow your recipe EXACTLY when substituting the butter (earth balance brand works great) and I usually use rice milk for a dairy alternative. There are many other milk alternatives too like soya yes and coconut milk which gives your baked goods a yummy flavor. These are only suggestions as I would DEFINATELY do a test run beforehand! Good luck:)