When you first think of olive oil, you think of a drizzle to finish off a salad, pouring into a pan to prepare a dish or dunking your fresh bread into a golden bowl of oil. However, if you’re more into baking than you are cooking, you are not left out of all of olive oil’s perks and benefits! You can use olive oil as a swap for butter, margarine, lard or any other fat in your recipes! 

Three tablespoons of olive oil for every 1/4 cup butter is the perfect proportion for your baked goods. If you use a 1:1 ratio, you will end up with a very oily and soggy tray of muffins or cookies. You can even use it to prep your pans instead of using flour. When your recipe calls for melted butter, using an extra-virgin olive oil is a great substitution. We advise not to use olive oil when it calls for sticks of butter (no matter how bad you want to) for cakes and cookies because of the creaming process to get a light and fluffy cake or cookie. But for bars, brownies, and even bread, olive oil is a great healthy alternative! 

The first baked good you need to try when dipping your toes into using olive oil in baking is none other than an olive oil cake. It is a very versatile cake you can add fresh fruit into, add a lemon or orange zest, or leave as-is and enjoy the rich flavor olive oil can give to the cake. Adding some oil to your cake along with lemon, fruity, or almond flavors make a sweet and savory flavor palette. A component of most recipes is to grease your pan with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter or cooking spray. Just add the olive oil with your wet ingredients, mix with your dry, and you have the base of your cake! There are so many recipes on the internet for you to try, but we specifically love this one from bon appétit.

If you bake with olive oil, let us know how you use it on our instagram @yourolivoamigo!