Using Corn Oil in Recipes

Asked by dvina_wijaya. Answered on 21st March 2015

Full question

When corn oil is specified in a recipe will the taste will be different if I'm not using that oil? Particularly in cake and banana bread recipes? Thank you.

Our answer

Corn oil is an oil that is flavourless and has quite a high smoke point. It is often suggested in recipes where oil is an ingredient but shoud not affect the flavour of the finished dish. It is also popular for fried foods as the oil can be heated to a fairly high temperature without burning. However you can usually substitute another flavourless vegetable oil oil for the corn oil.

Other flavourless oils include sunflower oil, canola oil (expeller pressed rapeseed oil, in the UK usually labelled as vegetable oil), peanut (groundnut) oil and safflower oil. Oils that should be avoided as they have an underlying flavour are olive oil, cold-pressed rapeseed oil and most tree nut oils. Cococnut oil can sometimes be used but it does have a mild coconut flavour that could affect the dish. Also coconut oil is solid at room temperature so needs to be heated to become liquid, which means it may not be a suitable substitute in baking.