OIL:

Oil is 100 percent fat....Oil is the only common lipid that does not contribute to leavening in baked goods....Oil is used in quick breads, muffins and chiffon cake for a distinctively moist and tender yet dense course crumb."

So basically, a true cake uses fats, but cakes using oil (that are not a chiffon cake) are really more of a quick bread which is why they tend to be denser and have a different texture.  These type of cakes depend solely on the other ingredients for their leavening.

Hope this helps.

Boy, made me think on this one!  Memories from my culinary school lessons came to mind but I had to go back to my reference books so that I could be sure I was giving you correct info

--  you are right in that certain cakes use fats and the creaming method to incorporate air into the batter but these only assist in the leavening process, cakes also depend on other ingredients, such as chemical leaveners, eggs, etc. for their height and texture.

here's a couple blurbs from my book "How Baking Works" by Paula Figoni that my be helpful

Chapter 10: Fats, Oil, and Emulsifiers:

Assists in Leavening:  ..."In summary, the three main ways that fats contribute to leavening in baked goods are as follows:

- through the incorporation of air during the creaming of plastic fats

- by the air and water already present in certain plastic fats

- through the assistance of emulsifiers in high-ratio shortenings

....

OIL:

Oil is 100 percent fat....Oil is the only common lipid that does not contribute to leavening in baked goods....Oil is used in quick breads, muffins and chiffon cake for a distinctively moist and tender yet dense course crumb."

So basically, a true cake uses fats, but cakes using oil (that are not a chiffon cake) are really more of a quick bread which is why they tend to be denser and have a different texture.  These type of cakes depend solely on the other ingredients for their leavening.

Hope this helps.

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Hey nhBaker,

Thanks for taking the time to look in your old textbooks!

I see where your book stated,  "Oil is used in quick breads, muffins and chiffon cake for a distinctively moist and tender yet dense course crumb."

and I've seen this hundreds of times. Yet, how many cakes (not quickbreads and not chiffon cakes) have we all made where the only fat was oil, and they turn out just lovely? Maybe it's like you said and these are more like a quickbread. But on the other hand I have to disagree because I've made countless batches of scratch cupcakes and I swear they were more like cake than a muffin and all I used was oil and I did not do any other thing such as whip egg whites separately and fold them in.

At this point in time my best guess is that the cupcakes I've made were using the quick-bread method, but still turned out more like a cake rather than a muffin. Maybe the correct way to state this is saying that it is the method that is "quickbread", rather than the finished product.

Thanks!!!!!

Julie

Baking is extremely complicated (duh). Even our top scientists haven't cracked some of it's secrets. Shirley Corriher spent years trying to figure out baking and she only scratched the surface with her book Bakewise.

The creaming method is most definitely not a hoax! But it only applies to certain baked goods, certain ingredients combined together....

Oil is a completely different chemical than butter. I understand how you want to draw a similarity to them because when you cook/fry they work very similarly. But they aren't interchangeable in baking like they are in cooking.

I wasn't trying to draw a similarity. I was trying to figure out how with the absence of creaming, a cake that contains oil (not a muffin and not a foam cake) rises so well.

There are many different types of cakes but mainly butter cakes (which rely on creaming) and sponge cakes (which don't rely on the creaming method). Each has different chemicals/ingredients and each rely on different mixing methods to work. In baking, there definitely isn't one technic/method that applies to all baked goods. Your thinking logically and that's great!!!!! But your wanting to over simplify a complicated topic. The creaming method for butter cakes don't apply to sponge type cakes.

Yes, but the cakes I've made using only oil were NOT sponge or any type of foam cake. Do you see why I'm asking what I'm asking now?

If you want to learn more about baking I highly suggest you check out The Bakers Dozen book edited by Rick Rodgers. It's one of the better baking books that explain roles of ingredients and methods in a simplified logical ways. Plus, there are some really great recipes in that book.

I'll see if I can locate that book.

Thanks!

I think chocolate cake is the exception, however.  My chocolate cake recipe has no butter, just oil and no creaming method and it comes out light, fluffy and moist, not dense or breadlike.  Chocolate is the only cake I do use oil in though.