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).
Vegetable oil can be replaced with a 1:1 swap of Greek yogurt or sour cream — just keep in mind that the tartness of these products might alter the flavor profile of the baked goods. If you want to try buttermilk, use ¾ cup buttermilk with ¼ cup of oil or melted butter to equal one cup of oil.
If you want delicate, soft, and tender baked goods, I recommend using oil vs. butter. Butter will result in a denser crumb and not be as moist.
Butter is considered a solid fat because it is solid at room temperature and oil is considered a liquid fat because it's liquid at room temperature. Because of this, you can't rely on oil to provide any leavening help in baked goods, which can result in a denser texture.
As the dough is baked, the butter melts and creates steam, trapping it in the dough and creating air pockets. Once the dough has cooled, these air pockets become delicate layers of flaky dough. By this point, you've realized that butter adds more than flavor—it develops texture.
Adding butter (unsalted) or oil (olive or vegetable) in small quantities to bread results in a higher rise, a crisper crust, and a longer shelf life. When fat is added in large quantities, such as for brioche, it results in a softer texture and less volume.
Handle dough as little as possible, and if it starts to feel warm, pop it in the fridge. Because melted butter has already released much of its water content, it makes the finished treats soft and dense, as well as flavourful. Use it in loaves and brownies.
If you don't use any oil, the dough will pull apart and produce holes. It also makes the dough more flexible, rolling out and stretching to its maximum potential. During fermentation, increase the volume of the dough.
The rye bread without oil had a slightly tough, chewy crust. Fats work as tenderizers in breads by coating some of the proteins that form gluten, preventing them from hydrating and linking up to form large networks that would lead to toughness.
There is not really a hard and fast rule to the right amount of oil to replace butter, but you can typically use about three-quarters of the amount of butter that is called for in the recipe. For instance, if the recipe calls for 10 tablespoons of butter, you can use about 7 1/2 tablespoons of oil.
Once the dough is smooth and elastic, add the butter and continue kneading on medium-low speed until the butter is completely incorporated and the dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic. Allow the dough to rise in a covered bowl until it's doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.
The job of butter in baking (besides being delicious) is to give richness, tenderness and structure to cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. We alter the way butter works in a recipe by changing its temperature and choosing when to combine it with the other ingredients.
Melted butter also works as a 1:1 swap for vegetable oil in baked goods — try browning the butter for even more flavor! If you are cutting calories or fat from your diet, here's another great sub for vegetable oil: In baked goods, replace up to half of the vegetable oil with plain unsweetened applesauce.
In baking, lubrication is of utmost importance for ease of dough handling and its expansion. In loaf breads, oil provides better slicing. Furthermore, it tenderizes baked items and helps in prolonging shelf life by slowing down retrogradation or staling.
When an oil component is added to your bread dough, not only will it improve the crumb structure, but it will also make a softer and moist loaf. This is because the oil in the dough prevents water from evaporating during baking. As the water is retained, it keeps the baked bread moist and tenderized.
Finally, fats and oils provide tenderness, mouth feel and flavor to the finished crust. They also help enhance the volume of the dough and inhibit moisture penetration from the toppings during baking, thus helping to prevent gum line formation.
Baking with oil not only requires less work, and results in fewer dirty dishes, than butter, but it also produces tender, moist baked goods that get better with age and boast an impressively long shelf-life.
Yeast growth is inhibited by both salt and sugar, but more so by salt than sugar. Some sources say fats, such as butter and eggs, slow down yeast growth; others say the effect of fat on dough remains unclear, presenting evidence that small amounts of fat are beneficial for baked bread volume.
Adding oil to your pizza dough makes it crispier once baked. The oil creates an impermeable layer that moisture, such as that present in tomato sauce, cannot easily penetrate. In other words, olive oil in pizza dough prevents sauce from absorbing into the dough and making it floppy.
The most common way to replace oil in baked goods is by using applesauce or mashed banana. Other fruit purees work too, but most of them add more flavor – apple and banana are neutral enough to not overpower other flavors.
For example, in a dessert pizza, replacing olive oil with either butter or butter oil, or even lard, could greatly improve the flavor of the pizza by making the crust taste more like a pastry than a pizza crust. The same thing can be said when making a breakfast pizza.
LPT: Never try to knead oil into a dough AFTER the dough has gained structure. Add oil at the beginning.
If you're using too much butter, it can make the bread soggy. Try using a little less butter, or even margarine, when you're grilling your sandwich. You can also try using a non-stick spray.
It depends on the recipe. If your recipe calls for softened butter so you can cream the butter and sugars together, then no, melted butter would not achieve the same result. If you're making muffins and the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of melted butter, again no, using softened butter would not achieve the same result.