Can I subst canola oil for some of the butter in cookies?

[katja]

I am trying to cut down on the amount of saturated and trans fat in our diet. Has anyone successfully subsituted oil for half or more of the butter or margarine in any cookie recipes? I am not particularly looking for recipes, but rather just general guidelines. Once I substituted all the butter/margarine with oil in a chocolate chip cookie recipe and the cookies were terribly crunchy! Since then I have not done any more experimenting.

[lorilei]

You might try simply cutting down the amount of butter you use in the recipe. If this makes you uncomfortable, add part of a pureed banana to make up for the missing fat.

The Cook's Thesaurus has this to say about substitutions:

For Baking
Avoid substituting oils for solid fats when baking cookies, cakes, and pastries; it will make the dish greasy and dense. If you must do so, substitute 3 parts oil for every 4 parts solid fat and consider increasing the amount of sugar and eggs in the recipe. Pie crusts made with oil aren't as flaky as those made with solid fat.

[This message has been edited by lorilei (edited 08-16-2000).]

[kentgirl]

According to this website: http://www.airscapes.com/HLTHQST/HLTHQST7.HTM
you can substitute canola oil for butter or margarine as follows:
For 1 cup butter, substitute 14 tablespoons canola oil.
For 3/4 cup butter, substitute 10 tablespoons canola oil.
For 1/2 cup butter, substitute 7 tablespoons canola oil.
For 1/4 cup butter substitute 3 1/2 tablespoons canola oil

Hope this helps!

[Ralph]

I've heard it suggested by more than one person that reducing the amount of oil/fat/etc. in a recipe by 1/3 won't disturb the results to any great extent. I agree w/Lorelei about adding pureed banana; unsweetened applesauce will work too.
By the way, some recent research has suggested that butter may not be quite as bad as we used to think .

[Grace]

There are several low trans-fat and saturated fat brands of margarine out there now - I want to say Promise is one of them, but you'll have to check the packages. Maybe Brummel and Brown, too. I still wouldn't want to eat an exclusive diet of these things, but I think they are a "healthier" (still not necessarily healthy!) alternative to regular margarine or butter. The cholesterol they say is not such a bad guy anymore, and if you are eating an already otherwise low saturated fat diet, then a little bit of saturated fat from butter probably won't hurt most people, but I know that they have margarine out there now that is both low in saturated fat and low in trans-fat. Good luck!

Grace

[MrsReber]

Ralph, I totally agree with you about butter not being so bad. I used to only use margarine, but my husband refused to eat it. Supposedly it's very bad for men? He's not the only one who has said this, either. So I am back to butter now, which does actually taste better. I usually cut down on the amount in whatever I'm cooking, too. It never makes much of a difference. Funny how they tell us not to eat things and then they find out they're not as bad as everyone thought- kind of like the cholesterol in eggs, no?