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How to convert butter to oil in baking - butter to oil ratioHow to use oil to butter conversion calculatorButter to oil grams conversion exampleFAQsIf you're looking to bake a cake and want to know how much butter to use instead of oil, the oil to butter conversion calculator has got you covered.
Read on to find out how to substitute oil for butter, how to convert butter to oil in baking, what the 250g butter to oil conversion is, and more helpful tips. Did you know that you should be careful when converting butter to coconut oil? With our converter, you will never fail to bake the perfect cake.
How to convert butter to oil in baking - butter to oil ratio
While preparing baked goods, one might feel tempted to change up the recipe and do a vegetable oil to butter conversion - or the other way around. There are several reasons you might do this swap: being vegan, having a bad cholesterol results, or looking for the perfect taste. But did you know that fat you'll use in a cake will affect how it turns out? Before we tell you how to replace butter with oil, let's see what should you keep in mind.
Butter | Oil |
|---|---|
Buttery flavor is an added bonus. | Bigger flexibility — every oil (and there are quite a few!) will give add something to the cake's taste. |
Butter helps your cake rise - it's a solid fat and will trap some air in the dough. Its water content also helps, as, when it evaporates, it will leave bubbles of air behind. | Liquid oils don't have a way to create those air bubbles in the cake, so cakes made with oil are denser. |
Both fats affect the cake's richness equally. | |
Butter gives more tenderness than liquid oil. | Although oil gives less tenderness, it is still quite tend, as is the case for every fat. |
You now know what kind of fat you need in this particular cake. How to replace butter with oil if your desired fat is not in the recipe? Simply use an oil to butter ratio of 3 : 4. This means that for every three parts of oil (e.g., three tablespoons), you need to take four exact parts of butter (4 tablespoons in our example). That's it!
Liquid vegetable oil | Butter |
|---|---|
3/4 teaspoon | 1 teaspoon |
3/4 tablespoon | 1 tablespoon |
3 tablespoons | 1/4 cup |
3/4 cup | 1 cup |
Or use our calculator instead. 😉
How to use oil to butter conversion calculator
Using our oil to butter conversion calculator is simple and intuitive. Just type in the amount of the ingredient that you want to replace. You can convert oil to butter or butter to oil.
What is important to remember is that we only consider liquid cooking oil here. It is almost the same as the vegetable oil to butter conversion, but it doesn't apply to the solid coconut oil.
How to substitute butter for oil using our calculator?
Take a look at the calculator. To switch liquid cooking oil to butter, you'll be interested in the first two fields of the calculator.
Type in the amount of butter you want to switch or the amount of oil you wish to convert. The calculator will immediately tell you how much butter to use instead of oil and vice-versa.
Click on the unit, and you will see a drop-down list of the units we usually use in the kitchen. Click on the one that interests you, e.g., butter to oil conversion in grams.
If substituting butter for coconut oil, refer to the bottom section of the calculator. Click the heading "Coconut oil conversion" to view conversions to coconut oil in both mass and volume.
Note that the amount of coconut oil is given as both weight and volume units. This is because the conversion from butter to coconut oil is different depending on if your recipe calls for butter in weight units (e.g., grams) or volume units (e.g., ml).
Why the difference? Butter and coconut oil have different fat and water content, which implies the difference in their density. Butter is denser than the coconut oil. Find out more in the FAQ section.
Butter to oil grams conversion example
As an example, let's see what a 250g of butter to oil conversion is:
- 187.5 g of liquid cooking oil; or
- 200 g of coconut oil
With our butter calculator, we know that 250 g of butter = 277 ml of butter. If you wish to switch this amount to coconut oil, you should use exactly 188 ml of coconut oil. 🥥
Did you like the oil to butter calculator? Try our other tools:
- Cooking measurement converter;
- Cake pan converter; and
- Grams to tablespoons calculator.
How much butter is 1/2 cup of oil?
1/2 cup of liquid cooking oil equals approximately 2/3 cup of butter.
How to calculate that?
The oil-to-butter ratio is 3:4. That means for every three parts of oil, we need four equal parts of butter. This also means that one part of oil equals a 4/3 part of butter.
In this case, we should multiply the number of oil cups by 4/3 to get the amount of butter that we need:
1/2 cup of oil × 4/3 = 2/3 cup of butter
How much vegetable oil equals one 1 stick of butter?
One stick of butter equals about 93.75 ml or 6 tablespoons of liquid vegetable oil.
- For one part of butter, we need 3/4 of an equal part oil.
- 1 stick of butter = 125 ml.
- 125 ml × 3/4 = 93.75 ml
- 93.75 ml = 6 tablespoons
Is it better to cook with butter or oil?
It depends on what you're trying to achieve with your meal. Butter will give you the recognizable taste and helps your dough to rise. On the other hand, oil can be more beneficial for your overall health and gives you the flexibility of choosing the taste that you like the most.
While frying, you'd never want your frying fat to burn and smoke. If your recipe calls for butter frying, better use clarified butter. You also don't want to fry in the oil where the fatty acids are unstable, such as linseed oil.
Is coconut oil healthier than butter?
Not really. Despite its recent popularity, coconut oil is made mainly of saturated fatty acids, which we should avoid in our diet. The same portion of coconut oil contains almost 2x more saturated fatty acids compared to butter.
Saturated fatty acids contribute to atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases (like stroke and heart attack), obesity, and cancer.
Can I replace butter with coconut oil?
Yes, you can. But while converting butter or margarine to coconut oil, you should remember two things:
- If you convert from butter in grams to coconut oil, you have to multiply it by 0.80.
- When your recipe calls for butter in the volume unit (e.g., tablespoon), multiply it by 0.75 to get the right amount of coconut oil.
Why is that?
Butter is a little denser than coconut oil - it's the fault of the water content in butter (about 15%). Coconut oil contains less water and more fat molecules. That means a cup of butter weighs a little bit more than a cup of coconut oil, but at the same time, the cup of coconut oil contains more fat than a cup of butter.
