I know you can replace 1 cup of butter with 7/8 cup oil.

However, I want to replace 20g of melted butter in a recipe with olive oil.

Does anyone know the formula to determine the amount of oil I need to use?

I thought I could: divide 20g by 8=2.5 x 7=17.5g. Is that correct?

Thank you!

Easier to multiply the butter by .81.  The 7/8 is only a crude estimate, but it’s the best one can do when using volume measurements.

Thank you Charles! Just for my own knowledge, how did you get the .81?

Flour Girl - 04 June 2012 09:40 PM

Thank you Charles! Just for my own knowledge, how did you get the .81?

US butter is typically 81% butterfat, while the European butters are higher, 86-ish.  For what it’s worth, if you used the 7/8 figure, you’re assuming about 88% butterfat, which leads to the figure you calculated.

Interesting. I didn’t think to consider the fat content of the butter.

Thanks a lot Charles. I appreciate your help.

Charles, I followed your suggestion and replaced 1.5TB butter with 16g olive oil.  I made .5 recipe of the low fat “donuts” from The Sweeter Side Of Amy’s Bread.  I used 1 egg and halved all the other ingredients. Here they are cooling. They are looking good.

Thank you Charles. I have a lot of respect for your opinion and appreciate that you helped me.

Very pretty!!!!!!!!!!  They are looking good ... you will have to tell us if they are also tasting good!

Thank you FG. I didn’t really give you my own views, though, only described how people generally go about thinking about this particular issue. Butter is water and fat, so you can replace it with other liquids and fat. Or at least, that’s the most rational starting assumption.  Butter is solid when cool, whereas oil is not, so it’s possible you might find the result oily and need to reduce the oil a bit.  That happened to me with my brownie recipe.  I would suspect if you took a brioche recipe and replaced all the butter with oil, you’d get a royal mess.

Anne in NC - 05 June 2012 12:49 PM

Very pretty!!!!!!!!!!  They are looking good ... you will have to tell us if they are also tasting good!

I will do that, right after dinner tonight.

They have a nice heft to them. It’s not a skimpy portion.

The stats listed in the book are 4g fat/serving. Mine are even less and they are the good fats from olive oil.

CharlesT - 05 June 2012 01:29 PM

Thank you FG. I didn’t really give you my own views, though, only described how people generally go about thinking about this particular issue. Butter is water and fat, so you can replace it with other liquids and fat. Or at least, that’s the most rational starting assumption.  Butter is solid when cool, whereas oil is not, so it’s possible you might find the result oily and need to reduce the oil a bit.  That happened to me with my brownie recipe.  I would suspect if you took a brioche recipe and replaced all the butter with oil, you’d get a royal mess.

Charles, I respect your opinion expressed in all your posts and I know I am not alone in that regard. Not only do I respect your opinion, I trust it as well. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.  It might be a general view but I would not have realized it or applied it to my baking this morning without your help.

The muffin doesn’t feel oily.  The recipe calls for 1.5 TB of melted butter so I felt it would be an easy transition to oil, as no creaming was involved.

It can’t turn out as bad as the first time I baked these (Sunday). I put the filled pan in the oven and turn around and see the buttermilk sitting on the counter. I hurriedly remove the pan, dump it’s contents in a bowl and whisk in the buttermilk. Unfortunately a crust had already formed in the lining of the cavities of the pan but it was still good!! These came out just as pictured in the book so I have high hopes for it

Anne in NC - 05 June 2012 12:49 PM

you will have to tell us if they are also tasting good!

They are very good.

They are not greasy at all. They are lighter than the batch I made using vegan butter. The glaze gave them a cruller taste.

I think subbing the oil for the pseudo-butter worked out very well.

Amount of oil to replace butter—that is good to know Flour Girl Thank you. 
multiply by .81, that was my next question.. thank you Charles
Looks delicious Flour Girl, those are donuts?  Looks like bundtlettes

I look forward to trying this substitution in a couple of recipes

Thank you CRenee! Yes, it is a bundlette pan. The book calls them donuts.  With the glaze, I think they looks and taste like crullers.

I loe the pan. It is the Nordic Ware 65th Anniversary Bundtlette. Each muffin is a nice size. 

Let us know how the conversion works for you.

I got same problem with conversion from time to time. But i found some program for my mobile phone that converts everything! Very useful.

Which App is it Cookie Monster?

There is “Kitchen Dial” and “Kitchen Cooking calculator”, there are both for iphone and you can buy on itunes. Kitchen Dial is free app and very good, kitchen cooking calculator is $2.99 on itunes.