Olive Oil Biscuits Recipes - Biscuits Made Without Butter (2024)

FAQs

Can you substitute olive oil for butter in biscuits? ›

Usually, olive oil is best used as a substitute for butter in baking recipes that call specifically for liquid butter. In these cases, olive oil should be substituted for butter in a 3:4 ratio by volume. So if the recipe calls for one cup of butter, then you would use ¾ cup of olive oil.

If you must substitute, use a solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco. If you can use the butter-flavored type, the taste will not be affected to the same degree. Butter gives the best taste, but a vegetable fat is satisfactory for your biscuits.

Try it: brush a little olive oil onto two slices of bread to make a ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich: it will come out of the sandwich toaster cooked to perfection.

Selecting the liquid for your biscuits

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

Substitution Tip

Substitute three-quarters of the butter in a recipe with olive oil. For example, if a recipe calls for one stick of butter (8 tablespoons), use 6 tablespoons of oil.

When substituting vegetable oil with butter in a recipe, the conversion ratio is not always one-to-one. However, as a rough estimate, you can use the following guideline: 1/2 cup vegetable oil is approximately equivalent to 1/2 cup (1 stick or 8 tablespoons) of butter.

In a pinch, substitute butter with another semi-solid fat

Without undergoing the Maillard reaction, biscuits made with oil also lack the richness and allure of butter-baked biscuits.

The job of butter in baking (besides being delicious) is to give richness, tenderness and structure to cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. We alter the way butter works in a recipe by changing its temperature and choosing when to combine it with the other ingredients.

While the quantity of acid could be fine-tuned, the consistency of milk-based substitutions will be unavoidably thin. Compared to cultured buttermilk, plain milk is watery, making the dough so heavy and wet that it oozes into a puddle, turning the biscuits flat and dense.

What we are doing is freezing olive oil (absolutely safe), whipping in a food processor with a little water and placing in serving bowls to smear right away on crusty bread. This is delicious, a truly healthy alternative to butter and if you haven't already – dump those tubs of margarine.

What is healthier olive oil or butter? ›

Though butter does have nutritional value, olive oil might be the better choice. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, liquid fats like olive oil are rich in heart-healthy unsaturated fats, while butter has more saturated fats.

For one thing, butter is made up of 63% saturated fat, whereas olive oil only has 14%. Olive oil also contains heart-healthy monounsaturated good fats and antioxidants. Butter's high saturated fat content, on the other hand, is shown in studies to lead to heart disease and other health issues.

Southern cooks have several tricks when it comes to making tender and delicious biscuits, from the cutters they use, to the type and amount of liquid incorporated, to the number of kneads required to turn out a perfect dough. The not-so-secret ingredient they rely upon is soft wheat flour.

Buttermilk adds a nice tang to the biscuit flavor and helps them rise better.

Olive oil is an extremely versatile type of cooking oil and can be used for anything from baking to frying to sautéing. When recipes call for the use of either butter or any other type of refined oil, such as vegetable oil, we highly recommend substituting this for olive oil instead.

Yes. Benecol Buttery taste spread and Olive spread are great to use in baking and can be easily 'switched' into your favourite heart healthy recipes.