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I need tips for converting oil & butter in standard baking recipes, especially since everything plant based in the stores contains oil.

Fran's 9th Annual Valentines Spectacular

Fran Costigan - Fran's 9th Annual Valentines Spectacular

Recorded

This event was on February 11, 2025

Join renowned pastry chef Fran Costigan, Rouxbe’s Director of Vegan Pastry, for her 9th annual Valentine’s Day Spectacular, a live event celebrating indulgent-tasting plant-based desserts. Enjoy a showcase of sweet and savory treats perfect for couples, singles--kids too. Chef Fran will offer make ahead tips and consider dietary preferences during this fun and informative celebration of love and vegan delights. Register and send in your questions. Wearing red is optional.

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Question

Cindy Mello

I need tips for converting oil & butter in standard baking recipes, especially since everything plant based in the stores contains oil.?

Answer

So Cindy and everyone, I wanna say first of all that when you are converting a recipe from butter, dairy butter to oil, you use only three quarters of the amount. You don't use the same amount. And I'm reading between the lines, Cindy, so I'm guessing, but you can tell me if I'm wrong here, that you are looking for fat free desserts. In other words, whole food, plant-based, no oil. And then I would say what you wanna do is think about what I had said to Char about using fruit purees, vegetable purees like bananas. Uh, and I don't mean that. Well, fruit pures, if you use banana, remember that it has a strong flavor. Applesauce is the least, is the most neutral. And I happen to love prune puree in chocolate desserts. Um, so you can do that and see how it goes. But this definitely takes testing. So you wanna take a recipe that you know works or that you'd like to convert, divide it in half, maybe divide it by a quarter and start messing around. Um, if you can use some of the fruit or vegetable puree and a little bit of oil in your recipe, that will give you the best mouthfeel. These little cupcakes. Um, this is 24 cupcakes. There's four tablespoons of oil in the entire recipe.

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com

Fran Costigan is internationally renowned as the authority on vegan desserts. Trained at the New York Restaurant School and Natural Gourmet Institute, Fran was a chef in both traditional and vegan pastry kitchens before moving into teaching over 20 years ago. A lifelong chocoholic and long time vegan, Fran’s latest book, Vegan Chocolate: Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy Free Desserts, (Running Press 2013) is for all who madly, deeply love chocolate desserts, whether or not dietary considerations are an issue. Her previous cookbook, More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally (Book Publishing Company 2006) is the basis of the Costigan Vegan Baking Boot Camp Intensive®. For more information, www.francostigan.com.