Food - Drink
The Alternative Fat That Will Elevate Packaged Cake Mixes
By MOLLY HARRIS
One of the ingredients required for most boxed cake mixes is fat, and the instructions on the box often call for vegetable oil. Oils serve as a source of moisture and help to distribute heat evenly in the oven, resulting in a tender and fluffy cake, but if you don’t have any on hand, try using this fat that could make dessert even better.
For your cake mix, try using coconut oil, which not only makes a great substitute for other oils in many recipes, but enhances desserts because it has a subtle, sweet flavor. Unless you're baking a coconut cake, you should use refined coconut oil, which is odorless and not coconutty, so it won't distract from the other flavors in your cake.
Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, but it can be melted and mixed into batter like any other oil, and you can use a simple 1:1 ratio to swap coconut oil with which oil your box of cake mix calls for. Coconut oil is especially delicious when paired with yellow and vanilla cake mixes, where its delicately sweet notes can shine.