PrintOil or butter
I have tried using oil in cake recipes and muffins but they turn out really awful. I follow the recipe very closely. When I use butter they turn out much better.
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7 Comments:
I always use butter for baking! When a recipe calls for oil, I simply replace it with an equal amount of melted and cooled butter! Same thing with cookie recipes that call for shortening, I replace it with butter and add a few extra tablespoons of flour... works every time, and what can a little extra butter flavor hurt, really?! :o)
annaliseree at 5:52PM on 04/27/08
Right on sister!!
immaculate55 at 5:55PM on 04/27/08
They are not interchangeable. Butter is a solid/plastic and although it melts, it is solid at room temperature. Especially if it's a cream-the-butter type cake, you will not get the same structure.
You're not supposed to use melted butter for oil, either, although I suspect the consequences are much less noticeable. Clarified butter would be a better choice in that case, though.
If you want to make a cake using oil, look for chiffon cakes, which are designed to use oil. I love them.
renzata at 6:06PM on 04/27/08
Oh but as you've seen, switching from margarine or shortening to butter is ok, since they are both solid fats. You could also use lard, if you wanted.
renzata at 6:08PM on 04/27/08
Each type has its place in baking. If you're looking for moist, subtly fruity and flavorful, go with olive oil where indicated. If you're imagining a tight crumb, a light texture, and flakiness go with butter.
You can usually substitute some oil for butter in more forgiving methods, such as quick breads and pound cakes, but if you're making anything more technical it's best to stick with what the recipe recommends. Otherwise the texture/taste of the finished product will not be ideal.
jazzinx at 11:16PM on 04/27/08
I make once a week a yogurt oil olive/canola cake. This is so good and has a dense crumb. I usually put frozen berries in it too.
Chiffon cakes remind me of my grandmother. She would make coffee cake that was out of this world with veg oil.
JerzeeTomato at 1:44AM on 04/28/08
Only specific cakes, i.e. Jerz's olive oil cake and carrot cakes, can be made with oil. (Was the olive oil cake the one featured here at SE?)
Don't waste anymore ingredients trying to recalculate a butter-based cake recipe to accommodate the use of oil. Google "cakes made with oil" or some such sentence and find cakes where oil is the fat of choice.
I love "tweaking" a recipe as much as the next person - tossing in a handful of raisins or chocolate chips - but your query only stands to prove that while "cooking is an art, baking is a science." There are just some changes and substitutions that will not work.
chiff0nade at 8:26AM on 05/01/08