There’s nothing more annoying than when you pull out one of the best boxed cake mixes just to realize you ran out of oil. In this case, you may be wondering if you can use butter instead, and how that will affect the outcome of your dessert. To find out, Food Republic spoke to Odette D’Aniello, baking expert and CEO at Dragonfly Cakes, for her expert opinion.
According to D’Aniello, substituting oil for butter is actually pretty common — and totally easy. “If you want to swap oil for butter, the basic rule is a 1:1 swap — but you’ll want to melt the butter and let it cool slightly before mixing it in,” D’Aniello said. This is so that it’s easier to incorporate the butter since, in something like a homemade lemon drizzle cake recipe, room temperature butter usually gets creamed into the sugar. Since you don’t have the opportunity to cream it, melted butter works better in this case. After that, it’s full steam ahead with the recipe as usual, including using the same oven temperature and baking time.
Oil vs butter: Which is better for your boxed cake?
If you’re deciding whether you want to go with the boxes’ given recipe or swap in some butter instead, it’s really about what you want the end result to be. Each type of fat will produce a different texture in the end. “Oil definitely has its place, especially if you’re looking for a cake that stays soft and moist for a few days — say, for a party where you’re baking ahead,” Odette D’Aniello said. “Cakes made with oil don’t firm up the way butter-based cakes do, so they stay tender even if they sit out overnight.” She said this is because butter solidifies at room temperature, causing cakes made with it to firm up faster.
However, you’ll likely get more depth from using butter instead. This is because most boxed cake recipes call for vegetable oil, which is actually made up of soybean oil mixed with other plant-based oils. Because of this, vegetable oil is neutral in flavor, so it doesn’t add much to the complexity of your cake. Butter, on the other hand, definitely does. “If you want that rich, buttery aroma[,] and you’re serving the cake the same day, butter might be worth it,” D’Aniello said. In the end, she explained that the one you choose depends on whether you’re prioritizing flavor or texture.
