Canola oil is a great choice to use in place of solid fats for baking, especially for cakes or muffins. Substituting canola oil reduces the amount of saturated fat compared to using solid fats like butter, shortening and lard. The best part is, no softening or melting required, making canola oil a quick and easy substitution in your baking.
How to convert a recipe that calls for butter or other solid fat, to one that uses canola oil:
Generally, when substituting canola oil for butter in baked products, you can use ¾ cup of canola oil for every 1 cup of butter. Not only will you reduce the total fat by up to 25 percent but also you will replace the solid fat with liquid canola oil, which is lower in saturated fats and contains no trans fat.
If you do a straight conversion (cup for cup), you will need to slightly reduce one of the other liquid ingredients in the recipe in order to retain the consistency of your dough or batter.
This conversion works well for most baked goods and the canola oil makes most baked goods more moist with a softer texture. However, you might find a slight difference in the consistency of some cookie doughs.
For baked goods like cookies that use solid fat as a leavener; this conversion will not work well.
