In cakes... can I use canola oil instead of vegetable oil? It's just a boxed cake mix but I just ran out and only have canola in the house.

Canola is a specific vegetable oil, so you can certainly make your cake using it.

HTH

yay! Thanks! I didn't see what would be a huge difference. So like in color even too.

I use almost exclusively canola (because that's what I have in the house) and it always turns out fine!

HTH!

I just tasted it and it's yummy! Thanks guys!

Great! Just in case anyone out there is looking for as to which oil makes for a healthier cooking oil option, I'd suggest canola oil which has lesser saturated fats and is a better option for frying owing to the fact that it can stand high heat without burning. 

You can also check the descriptive comparison of the two oils in terms of nutritional values and health benefits here. 

I also use avocado oil instead of vegetable oil and it substitutes perfectly

In a discussion on another site, one of the ladies was incapacitated and her son made the cake for her.  Not knowing any different, he used olive oil instead of regular vegetable or canola oil.  Turns out it was a happy mistake because the cake turned out beautifully.  I have since tried olive oil - always previously used either canola or vegetable - and it turned out the same as with the others.

I just cann't justify the price for oilve oil - 3X more than corn or canola :(    My daughter really got all over my case recently for using canola - insisting oilve was the *ONLY!* one to use :)

I am not a food snob in any shape, form or fashion, so I will probably never use olive oil again in cake.  It wasn't better or worse, taste and texture wise.  I have been using canola oil for many years, but now the food police is saying it's not good for you either.

FYI, for many years it's been reported that olive oil (a billion dollar industry) is frequently mislabeled. After much investigation, and realizing how fluid truth can be, I decided to stick with vegetable oil. A story from the Olive Oil Times and another from 60 Minutes.

who knows -- i think all of them are fine in cake -- no worries -- i saw that olive oil story too --

but my little thing with oils is that certain ones are better and worse for thyroid "they" say -- so i try to stick to olive for the most part for myself --

off topic a bit but -- and nearly all the commercial salad dressings are made with non-olive oil especially soy oil -- even the ones with olive oil on the label often will have two other types of oil listed on the ingredients list -- so that way the olive oil will actually be the least amount of oil used but still listed first on the label -- because the other two kinds are each less in quantity than the olive oil but combined they are a greater quantity -- example -- 4 ounces olive oil, 3 ounces canola oil, 3 ounces soy oil so there's less olive oil overall but it can still be listed first kwim -- gagh --

and of course for newbie label readers, the ingredients are listed in order of the most first -- the least last --

i'm an avid label reader but -- it's a crap shoot nonetheless