Different Baking Fats and Their Unique Benefits

Though we might not always think about it, fat plays a crucial role in baking. It adds moisture and creates tenderness in everything from cakes to croissants. Fat also brings richness, smooth texture, and can even help some baked goods rise more effectively. It's an indispensable ingredient, but have you ever wondered why different recipes require different types of fats?

While fats serve similar purposes in baking, their chemical compositions vary, which makes selecting the right fat essential for achieving the desired results. Whether you're experimenting with new recipes, tweaking existing ones, or just need a substitution because you forgot an ingredient, understanding your fat choices is key to successful baking.

The most commonly used fats in baking are either solid or liquid. Solid fats, like butter and shortening, are key to certain textures, while liquid fats such as oils offer different properties.

Solid Fats

Butter

For many bakers, butter is a go-to ingredient—and with good reason. It adds a rich, indulgent flavor that's hard to beat. Besides its incredible taste, the water in butter creates steam during baking, which helps leaven your baked goods. Butter also works to prevent gluten from forming in doughs and batters, leading to a tender and delicate texture.

While there are several varieties of butter available, the most commonly used in baking is sweet cream butter—often what you’ll find from brands like Land O'Lakes. Sweet cream butter usually contains around 80% fat, slightly less than European-style butters. Most bakers prefer unsalted butter for control over the salt content in their recipes, though salted butter can be used in a pinch. Just keep in mind, salted butter can vary in saltiness between brands.

Try These Recipes: Simple Butter Cookies, Classic Pound Cake, Chef John's Croissants

Shortening

Vegetable shortening may not bring the rich taste of butter, but this neutral-flavored fat—created by hydrogenating vegetable oils—has its own advantages. For starters, shortening is made up of 100% fat, with no water content. This makes it perfect for creating flaky pie crusts, especially when blind baking, as it doesn't release steam that can cause the crust to shrink.

The high fat content of shortening also leads to a superior level of tenderness. With a higher melting point than butter, cookies made entirely with shortening will spread less, giving them a firmer shape compared to those made with butter.

Try These Recipes: Perfect Pie Crust, The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, Fluffy Baking Powder Biscuits

Lard

Once a popular ingredient in many kitchens, lard—derived from rendered pork fat—has become less common in recent years. (Let's face it, the name lard isn’t exactly appetizing.) Like vegetable shortening, lard is 100% fat, but it has a lower melting point, making it perfect for creating flaky textures in baked goods like pie crusts and biscuits.

Lard comes in various types, which are categorized based on the part of the pig the fat is sourced from and how it is processed. The best options for baking are processed lard and the higher-end leaf lard. Both varieties are flavorless, and leaf lard, which comes from the fat around the pig’s kidneys and abdomen, is particularly smooth and creamy.

Recipes to Try: Traditional Lard Two-Crust Pie Pastry, Sadie's Buttermilk Biscuits, Classic Sugar Cookies

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil, which has become a popular ingredient in the health food world in recent years, has the lowest melting point of any solid fat (around 78°F). It can be creamed with sugar like butter and is a great one-to-one substitute for butter in most recipes, though the results will be slightly lighter than when using butter.

Another benefit of coconut oil is its relatively high smoke point, making it a great option for greasing baking pans. When it comes to flavor, you can decide whether you want a subtle coconut taste in your baked goods. If you're aiming for a touch of coconut flavor—perhaps for a coconut cake—opt for unrefined coconut oil. If you’d prefer to skip the coconut flavor altogether, go for refined coconut oil.

Try These Recipes: Coconut-Lemon Cream Pie, Orange-Cranberry Bundt Cake, Coconut Flour Chocolate Brownies

Liquid Fats

Neutral Oils

Neutral oils, like vegetable, canola, grapeseed, and avocado oils, are flavorless and commonly used in baking. These oils can be swapped with one another as they’re all 100% fat, adding moisture, tenderness, and richness to your recipes. Oils are especially useful in keeping cakes and other baked goods moist for longer, as they don’t solidify at room temperature, unlike butter. This is why you often see oil used in cake recipes to maintain a soft, moist texture.

Recipes to Try: Chocolate Oil Cake, Classic Yellow Cake, Ultimate Brownies

Olive Oil

Fruity and flavorful olive oil can sometimes be used in desserts, particularly rustic cakes, to infuse a unique richness. However, it’s not the go-to fat for light, fun treats like confetti cupcakes.

Olive oil pairs beautifully with citrus-flavored cakes or chocolate. If you're a fan of the distinct taste of quality olive oil, experimenting with it in your baking can lead to delicious results.

Try These Recipes: Spiced Orange Olive Oil Cake, Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, Olive Oil Bread

Substituting One Baking Fat for Another

Solid fats can be melted into a liquid form, but they will harden again as they cool. So while it's possible to swap solid fats for liquid ones in a recipe (once melted), keep in mind that this may affect the texture of your final product. For example, substituting vegetable oil with butter will result in a less tender bake, since butter contains less fat than oil.

On the flip side, replacing liquid fats with solid fats is generally not a good idea. Liquid fats can't provide the same leavening effect that a solid fat can. Take sugar cookies or pound cake, for instance, where you're asked to cream butter and sugar together. Oil wouldn't work well here, as it can't trap the air like butter can. In a pinch, if you're substituting oil for melted butter in a recipe for cake, muffins, or quick bread, use about ¾ of the amount of butter called for in the recipe.