Comments on: Fat Chance: Is Butter Really Better?

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 18:02:09 +0000

Here’s the ratio of swapping oil for butter or vice-versa

50 grams of BUTTER with 40 grams of OIL

80 grams of BUTTER with 64 grams of OIL

100 grams of BUTTER with 80 grams of OIL

120 grams of BUTTER with 96 grams of OIL

150 grams of BUTTER with 120 grams of OIL

180 grams of BUTTER with 144 grams of OIL

200 grams of BUTTER with 160 grams of OIL

220 grams of BUTTER with 176 grams of OIL

250 grams of BUTTER with 200 grams of OIL

By: Sybil

Sybil — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 20:00:45 +0000

Very interesting! I cannot bring myself to use margarine or shortening but recently did make
a yellow /vanilla cake that used oil instead of butter and it was quite nice.

By: Regine

Regine — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 17:59:41 +0000

To BBBAKER, thanks for sharing you butter/oil vanilla cake which I will make soon. I will let you know how it turns out. Also, for those that want to know how to replace some butter with oil in cake recipes, I use this formula. First, I would start with 1/4th of the butter. So if recipe asks for 2 sticks of butter (about 226 grams), I would take out 1/4 stick butter (4 tbsp or 2 oz or about 56.5 grams) butter and replace it with 80% oil (vegetable or corn or canola…) and 20% milk. So 56.5 grams butter = 45.2 grams oil plus 11.3 grams milk. This formula is based on the fact that butter is 80% fat and 20% milk while oil is 100% fat. Obviously, for this to be most accurate, you need a scale. I have a digital scale. But I know that many of us who live in the US do not have scales. Also, I do agree that cakes with oil are so much more moist and lighter than cakes with butter; but the downside is that butter gives more flavor to the cake, so I recommend that when you use an oil based cake to maybe increase the amount of vanilla extract and/or add some orange/lemon/lime zest. But this all depends on the type of cake you are making.

By: shirlee smith

shirlee smith — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 22:48:11 +0000

I have been baking anything that I can find online from the Great British Bake-Off. Most of my cakes and bread come out somewhat dry and do not last well past a day or two (they become even dryer.) All the recipes that I have used so far, call for butter. I was wondering if I could split the difference and use a combination of butter and oil? If you could let me know, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks so much.

By: Caroleen Naidoo

Caroleen Naidoo — Sat, 15 Jul 2017 05:53:13 +0000

In reply to Stephanie. Must you replace same quantity of milk with same quantity of sour cream.

By: BBaker

BBaker — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:18:00 +0000

Great article! This is actually something I learned over years of baking. I find that most people don’t really like buttercream frosting here in Europe and everyone seems to love whipped cream or mascarpone based frostings with fruit fillings etc… and cakes like this really HAVE to be refrigerated. When I use all butter cake, the cake part becomes really hard as it’s cool, which is normal = butter when cold is hard. That’s why I use a good amount of light olive or sunflower oil in my cakes along with butter and it really makes a huuuge difference! You should really try my recipe for basic vanilla cake or cupcakes (I use it for both and works great!).
170 g cake flour
1 + 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
80 g butter, soft
40 g light olive, sunflower or canola oil
150 g sugar
2 eggs (about 55 g each)
1 tsp vanilla (extract or paste, whatever you prefer)
120 g whole milk

Just sift together all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt), whisk em togehtehr and set aside. In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer cream together butter, oil and sugar for about 3 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add your eggs (one at a time) and vanilla and mix everything. Also at this point don’t forget to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, so everything mixes evenly. Finally, add your dry in 3 parts alternating with the milk in 2 parts. Mix on low speed until just combined, do not overmix! This makes about 12 cupcakes or one 9-inch round cake which can be splited in half. I usually double the ingredients, divide the batter between 2 x 9 inch pans so later I have 4 thin layers when the cakes are splited. This really is my go-to vanilla cake/cupcake recipe, it’s moist, buttery and still quite soft even after refrigerating!
So if anyone asks me whats my secret to a perfect cake, I say the combinatiion of butter and oil!

By: Chelsea Perez

Chelsea Perez — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 14:07:43 +0000

In reply to Erin Gardner. Is Cake suppose to "taste" just like butter? For Example I made a scratch Cherry Almond cake and I can really taste the butter part. It almost overpowers the cherry taste. Another incident, I was trying to make a Almond cake and it came out so gross my house smelled like butter it tasted like butter and it was flat. omg lol it was bad.I could really use some advice. I sell my cakes for about a year but most of them a half-way homemade. Starts as a box mix. Thanks God bless