Why Skipping The Butter Can Actually Improve Your Chocolate Cake

Who doesn't love chocolate cake? Its rich, sweet taste and crumbly texture make it a delicious dessert. The classic dish is great to serve at birthday parties, barbecues, and even weddings, and making a classic chocolate layer cake is simple and easy. However, if you alter one conventional step slightly, you'll likely get an even more luscious cake. These tasty treats are often baked with butter, but have you tried swapping out the butter in your recipe for oil?

Butter contains water, and that liquid vaporizes during baking. This dries out the chocolate cake, and that lack of moisture can make the cake taste lackluster. However, oils are made entirely of fat and don't contain any water. When you bake a chocolate cake that's made with oil, all of that fat in the oil will keep the cake moist, which will give you succulent bites of your chocolate cake. If you're convinced and you would like to try an oil-based chocolate cake recipe, be sure to use the best oils for baking cakes.

Canola oil is the best oil to use when baking a chocolate cake because its lack of flavor will let the chocolate layers of flavor in your cake remain prominent. Additionally, canola oil has less saturated fat –– a potentially harmful fat that may raise your cholesterol levels and increase your chances of getting heart disease or having a stroke, per the American Heart Association – than butter. So if you like to eat homemade chocolate cake often, it's healthier to bake it with oil instead of butter.

If you're not interested in trying canola oil in your chocolate cake, opt for an olive oil chocolate cake. Extra virgin olive oil also has a very mild flavor that will complement the strong chocolate flavors in your cake, while also giving your dessert a delightful lusciousness. After you've chosen your oil of choice, swap it into your chocolate cake recipe by using about 70% to 80% of the amount of butter called for.

In a Reddit thread called, "Chocolate cake recipe calls for no butter should I be concerned?," users shared their glowing reviews of a butterless chocolate cake recipe. User PrettyCrocker said, "You're good [...] I personally find it to be incredible." Another user attested to the incredible taste. Redditor Mindless-Bluejay-438 shared, "So moist and you don't miss the butter flavor because of the richness of the chocolate." The texture of butterless chocolate cake was championed as well, as Sweetmercy commented, "They have a more tender, and more even, crumb and tend to bake up loftier and lighter as well."

The positive responses to butterless chocolate cake were so strong that one user even declared that they were willing to give it a shot. User djentkittens wrote, "Can't wait to make it!" The next time you set out to bake the ultimate chocolate cake and you're debating whether it needs some butter, just skip it and use oil instead.