ABCs of Baking: O for Oils: (2024)

FAQs

What can I substitute for oil in a cake? ›

Unsweetened applesauce, mashed fruit, or pureed fruit such as bananas, pears, and prunes may be substituted for vegetable oil in baked goods. You can substitute cup for cup. The texture of your foods may be altered slightly. For example, applesauce makes cookies moister and more cake-like.

Butter is always the best substitute for oil in cake mix. Butter is high in fat and will make your cake mix rich and decadent. You may even like cake mix made with butter better than when it's made with oil!

Choosing vegetable oil is the best option for baking moist, delicious baked goods. Canola oil, the most common vegetable oil used in baking, doesn't add a strong flavor. It allows your cake's flavor will shine through while still achieving a moist texture.

You can absolutely substitute butter for the vegetable oil. Use the same quantity specified in the directions (for example, if it calls for 1/3 cup of oil, use 5 1/3 tablespoons of butter). Melt it down, then let it cool a bit. You might not ever go back to oil!

For example: 1/2 cup vegetable oil might be replaced with 2 tablespoons almond butter, 2 dates, and however much applesauce is needed to round out the half cup. The dates do need to be blended, but here's how to handle that: in most recipes you add the oil to the wet ingredients like milk, vanilla, etc.

Extra virgin olive oil is my number-one favourite, and you'll notice that I use this oil in most of my recipes - yes, including desserts, cakes, cookies and even chocolate! This oil is beautiful-tasting, velvety and brimming with health benefits: it's a rich source of antioxidants and monounsaturated fatty acids.

1 box of chocolate cake mix 1 cup of mayo Sub mayo in place of the oil and eggs called for on your box of chocolate cake mix, add water as instructed, and bake as instructed. Top with frosting of choice (I made a chocolate glaze) and enjoy! It does not taste like mayonnaise but it is incredibly rich and moist!

How much butter equals 1/2 cup of oil? ›

Replacing Oil with Butter

It couldn't be easier to substitute butter for oil using a 1:1 ratio. This should work with olive, canola, vegetable, and coconut oils. Simply melt and cool the butter to room temperature, then continue with your recipe. (If the recipe calls for ½ cup oil, use ½ cup melted and cooled butter.)

Just replace the oil with an equal amount of melted butter, and you'll get a drastically better cake with a more complex flavor.

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

The oils which should be avoided for cooking are oils like soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, and safflower. These oils have unstable fats and will decimate the nutritional properties of your food. Oh, and they'll give you a big fat health risk in the meantime.

Eggs play an important role in everything from cakes and cookies to meringues and pastry cream — they create structure and stability within a batter, they help thicken and emulsify sauces and custards, they add moisture to cakes and other baked goods, and can even act as glue or glaze.

If you're missing oil, try melted butter. Some experts say using melted butter as a replacement for oil improves the taste and texture of box cakes. Use the same measurement of butter as the recipe calls for in oil.

Most cake mixes call for oil, but butter will bring in amazing flavor. To substitute butter for oil in baking just melt the butter, measure it, let it cool, and add it as you would the oil. Compared to oil, butter will create a cake with a firmer, cakeier texture.

Its components make it a perfectly suitable substitute for oil, its thick and creamy constitution is similar to that of softened butter, and since it already has eggs in it, mayonnaise exhibits some of the binding power of eggs when cooked.