Tried swapping butter for coconut oil in pound cake - total disaster

Used a 1:1 swap in my go-to pound cake recipe. Came out greasy and flat, not fluffy at all. Anyone else run into this with fat substitutions?

2 comments

2 Comments

max_jones1d ago

Oh man, that sounds rough! I actually just watched a baking video the other day where the lady was talking about this exact thing. She said coconut oil is mostly solid fat but melts way faster than butter, so it just leaks out of the batter before the cake sets. Plus butter has water and milk solids that help with structure and fluffiness, and coconut oil is pure fat so you lose all that. She recommended only swapping up to like half the butter with coconut oil, and even then you gotta chill the oil first so it's solid when you mix it in. Might be worth trying with a little less next time or just sticking to butter for pound cake since it's so finicky.

murray.cole1d ago

Funny how shortcuts in the kitchen usually backfire, same as in life.