Time for an oil change? How to bake with nut oils instead of butter

I shied away from using nut oils in my baking for a long time. It’s easy to dislike foods lauded by health food fanatics, and turned from sustenance to superfood saviour in the name of clean eating. But neglect nut oils altogether and you risk missing out on so much.

Using nut oils, you’ll find you get a closer, softer, moister crumb, giving a cake that’s tender without sogginess or weight. In cookies it gives a chewier, less brittle texture, while in bread it means a melting lightness and soft crust. Of course, you reap all these benefits from any cooking oil, but where nut oils come into their own is in their flavour. Almond oil is smooth and light; hazelnut oil has a nutty robustness that makes it perfect alongside stronger flavours such as coffee and chocolate; walnut oil is delicately bitter, while coconut oil is rich, fragrant and perfectly mellow. You can use most nut oils more or less interchangeably, so adapt these recipes however you please. If you’re using oil in place of butter in other recipes, just use (by weight) 20% less oil than butter, and add a dash more liquid to the mix.

Pear, blackberry and coconut cake

Conference pears work well here, though any variety is fine, as long they are perfectly ripe and tender. You can find nibbed (or pearl) sugar online, but crunchy demerara sugar will do the job just fine.

Serves 8-10
100g coconut oil, soft but not melted
100g soft light brown sugar
50g desiccated coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
175g plain flour
2½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
2-3 ripe pears (you’ll need around 350g)
175g blackberries
2 tbsp nibbed or demerara sugar

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease a 20cm round baking tin and line the base with baking parchment.

2 Beat the coconut oil, sugar, desiccated coconut and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well as you go. Stir the flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl then add to the wet ingredients and fold in to get a thick batter.

3 Peel and core the pears, then cut into small chunks. Halve the blackberries. Fold ¾ of the fruit very gently through the batter, taking care not to crush the blackberries as you go. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and smooth the surface. Scatter the remaining fruit on top and sprinkle on the demerara or nibbed sugar.

4 Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a small knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. I like to serve this while it’s still slightly warm, cutting it into generous wedges with ice-cream. It’s just as good cold, though.

Rye chocolate hazelnut cake

I’ve tried this chocolate hazelnut cake in many guises – from heavily layered gateaux and truffle-topped birthday cakes sweetened with chunks of white chocolate to cupcakes topped with a rich hazelnut praline buttercream. Of all these, though, this simple loaf cake is my favourite. Rye flour adds a nutty depth that complements the hazelnut, while the easy cocoa icing adds sweetness without distracting from the darkness and tenderness of the cake itself.

Serves 6-8
125ml hazelnut oil
175g soft light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1½ tsp vanilla extract
75g roasted chopped hazelnuts
75g plain flour
75g dark rye flour
30g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
A generous pinch of salt
110ml hot water

For the icing
100g icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
25ml boiling water
25g chopped roasted hazelnuts

1 Grease and line a 900g loaf tin and preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

2 Stir the oil and brown sugar together then mix in the eggs and vanilla extract. Whisk vigorously for a couple of minutes just to aerate the mixture and bring it smoothly together.

3 Grind the hazelnuts to a fine meal in a food processor or coffee grinder, taking care not to overdo it or the nuts will begin to release their oils and you’ll be left with a paste. If you don’t have any way to process the nuts, you can swap them for ground almonds instead, although by using the oil alone, the hazelnut flavour will be more muted. You should be able to find ready-ground hazelnuts in the supermarket, too.

4 In a separate bowl, combine the plain and dark rye flours, then add the ground nuts, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Whisk lightly to mix everything together and break apart any flour or cocoa powder clumps (there really shouldn’t be any need to sieve the mixture).

5 Add the dry ingredients to the wet mix and beat together until smooth. Add the hot water and fold in until the batter is smooth and loose.

6 Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for roughly 45 minutes, until it’s well-risen with a proudly domed, cracked top. A small knife inserted into the middle should come out without any batter stuck to it. Leave to cool for half an hour or so in the tin, before unmoulding and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

7 Once the cake is cool, prepare the icing. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder together into a mixing bowl, then add the water a little at a time, making first a paste, then a very thick icing, then a pourable icing. Spoon the icing generously over the cooled loaf, letting it drip down the sides and pool in the crags and dips of the top of the cake. Straight away, while the glaze is still sticky, scatter the chopped hazelnuts over. Leave to set for a little while before cutting and serving.