Baking

• Extra light olive oil can substitute for butter when baking cookies, cakes, biscuits and muffins. Sweet and savory baked goods made with extra light olive oil taste lighter and retain their moisture longer. It is also an excellent alternative for dairy-free recipes. Extra light olive oil also may be used to prepare bread, muffin, cookie and cake pans for baking; just brush on the oil and flour the pan as usual.

Ratios

• When substituting extra light olive oil for butter, use a 3-to-4 ratio; therefore, three parts olive oil is equivalent to four parts butter. One cup of butter is equivalent to a 3/4 cup of olive oil. One teaspoon of butter is equivalent to a 3/4 teaspoon of extra light olive oil. One tablespoon of butter is equivalent to 2 1/4 teaspoons of extra light olive oil.

Extra Virgin or Extra Light

• Extra virgin olive oil is pure olive oil with exceptional taste, color and aroma. Its strong olive aroma and taste make it suitable for salad dressing or light sauteing, but not baking. Unlike extra virgin olive oil, extra light olive oil is noticeably lighter in color and taste and does not carry the same earthy flavor. It has the same calorie content and measures the same as extra virgin olive oil. Extra light olive oil is less pure, and is refined using processes that result in a colorless and tasteless olive oil. Once extra light olive oil has been processed, higher quality olive oil is added to bring back color and taste; other vegetable oils such as canola may also be added. Extra light olive oil is better suited for sweet baking, due to its light taste and aroma when an olive flavor is not desired.

When to Avoid

• Extra light olive oil may replace butter or margarine in most baking recipes; however, not in recipes that require creaming butter with sugar. Creaming butter with sugar can be an important step in baking to achieve a fluffy texture -- the sugar granules cut into the solid fat and aerate it to give cakes a rich, feathery quality. Fluffy cake recipes that require creaming may not work well with extra light olive oil because solid fat is needed to achieve the texture. Nor does extra light olive oil substitute for butter in frosting, which requires solid fat to keep it firm at room temperature.