Butter vs Oil for Baking. Which should you use and why

Let’s talk butter in cakes. Traditionally, butter’s one of THE key ingredients in cake making. When I first started making cakes, I believed that butter was the ONLY fat you could you to achieve a moist cake. I know different now. Most of my cakes have little or no butter and have amazing texture, taste and stay moist even when it’s been in the fridge. Curious why? Keep reading!

What happens to butter in the fridge? Exactly! It gets cold and hardens up. Similarly, when cake is made with butter, it hardens up when placed in the fridge. To make it more enjoyable to eat, you’d have to let it sit out for about an hour for optimum texture. It also dries up the longer it stays in the fridge.

So what do I use? I use oil.

Wait, hear me out. Oil is lighter than butter and cakes made with it tends to bake up loftier and stays moist longer than cakes made with butter. It’s good to go straight out of the fridge too.

The only exception is when I make a plain vanilla cake. There is NO argument that butter tastes better than oil so with a plain vanilla cake, I swap out half the oil for butter. Tastes great and still has a moist, tender crumb.

In my experience, the flavour difference is often negligible between butter and oil cakes IF the cake has some additional flavour (fruit, nuts, herbs, spices, etc.). The function of butter then becomes more for structure than flavour.

Are you Team Butter or Team Oil?