Coconut Oil in Olive Oil Cake

Asked by Joanna_Bread. Answered on 6th June 2014

Full question

Hi, Could I possibly use coconut oil in place of the olive oil in the Chocolate Olive Oil cake recipe? If so, what amount could I use? Would it be a 1:1 replacement of the olive oil? Thank you

Our answer

Theoretically it is possible to use coconut oil instead of olive oil in Nigella's Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) but we have not tried this ourselves so cannot guarantee the results. However we would mention that coconut oil can have quite a distinctive flavour and this may affect the taste of the finished cake.

If you were to substitute coconut oil then it would be in exactly the same quantities as the olive oil. As coconut oil tends to be solid at room temperature you need to melt the coconut oil first and you may find it easiest to do this by standing the jar in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes. Make sure that the coconut oil does not get too hot as it could scramble the eggs in the cake batter and also make sure that all of the other ingredients are at room temperature. In particular make sure the eggs are at room temperature as if they are fridge cold then the coconut oil could solidify as you beat the oil, eggs and sugar together.