Baking is fun and offers you a great many opportunities to be creative. At the same time, it lets you opt for healthier options, ensuring that everything you eat offers you some benefit. One basic item you would surely need to use in your baking or cooking activities is the nonstick spray. It is loaded with numerous benefits as it doesn’t degrade into menacing components, without causing any kind of health problems to the consumers.
What Benefits Does Nonstick Spray Offer?
A disfigured banana bread loaf will ruin all your efforts of baking one! No matter how much effort do you put into the process of baking the perfect bread, the final disfigurement caused by the sticky pan may disappoint you to the core. This is when using a nonstick spray comes in handy.
The biggest difference between nonstick spray vs oil is that of convenience! Cooking and baking nonstick spray comes with a lot of conveniences. You don’t have to go through the hassle of having to pour the required quantity of oil from that huge bottle that you can barely hold.
All you need to do is to simply spray it on the pan on which you are making the food and sprinkle some on the top of it. This will also ensure that you don’t end up spilling the oil and making a huge mess all around your kitchen. At the same time, you will save a lot of time.
Having an appearance of lubricant and containing an emulsifier, the cooking spray comes with a propellant such as propane. Combined together, these three elements are sprayed on the cooking pan to avoid the food from sticking to it. This way, it will get easier for you to take it off when the final product is ready!
What to do when you don’t have the Nonstick spray?
If, just like me, you also love to bake and that too at random times, having the nonstick spray in your possession at all times must be a long shot for you. There are times when you have all the ingredients ready, and once you are right at the step of pouring the batter into the pan, you realize that there is no nonstick spray! Whenever this happens, rather than panicking, just look for the substitutes, and you’re good to go.
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7 Useful Substitutes of Nonstick Spray
There are numerous substitutes for nonstick spray, and most of them are easily available. Some of them include:
1. Butter
Now, this is quite a low-cost, easily available alternative of nonstick spray. It surely offers the best nonstick spray replacement. A lot of baking recipes already require you to lightly grease your pan with butter. You, too, can go for this step, if you don’t have a nonstick spray readily available.
What helps you is the fatty cells of the butter. They create a coat on the pan which is completely nonstick, and lets the baked item come out of it smoothly. Just make sure to take a very small quantity of butter and simply grease the surface rather than going for a hard-core coating.
If you don’t want to take the butter slice off, you can hold the bar from one end and rub the other end on the pan. Placing the pan on the flame will make it melt fast and you would be able to use it immediately.
2. Vegetable oil
The nonstick spray for cooking is basically made of a mixture of vegetable oils. Therefore, it’s a very basic concept that as soon as you run out of the spray, you can use vegetable oil to replace it.
You can simply pour the oil on the pan and use a brush or tissue paper to spread it across the surface of the pan. Apart from this, you can pour it directly on a paper and rub it on the pan. Keep in mind that as this oil is light, you need to coat the pan lightly for it to work for you!
3. Flour Coating
In case you are baking muffins or brownies, coating the base of the pan with some flour is one of the most primitive ways of keeping them away from sticking to it. It is also arguably the best substitute for nonstick spray.
Mixing the flours that you use for baking and spreading them on the base and the sides of the pan is a great way of ensuring your whole baked items will come off easily. There will be no cracks on the back of the product, ensuring maximum satisfaction and happiness! You can easily substitute nonstick spray with flour.
For long term usage (if you are an avid baker) make a permanent mixture and use it in place of the nonstick spray. For that, you need to blend flour and vegetable oil in equal parts. You can store it in your fridge for repetitive usage. When you need to use it, simply spread it across the pan with the help of a brush!
4. Shortening
If you have never heard of this term before, you are missing out on a lot in your life. It is surely the nonstick spray alternative. The thick form of butter and margarine is called shortening, and is solid at room temperature.
Most of the time, bakers use it while making pastries and muffins. You can choose either the one made of animal fat or the one made from vegetable fat. Your choice won’t affect the taste of what you bake eventually!
Shortening is 100% fat and nothing dilutes it. Hence, it is the purest possible fat that you can get your hands on. Using it may be a bit tricky, as it’s solid at room temperature.
5. Bacon Fat
Now this substitute for nonstick spray baking comes with a bit of peculiarity. As the name specifies, it is the fat that is extracted from bacon, it comes with a bit of bacon flavor. In case you love this taste, you won’t mind your baked items to have a little flavor of it. On your baking pans, rub a bit of bacon fat and it will work as the perfect alternative to the spray oil.
Pouring the batter over the base of the pan that is coated with bacon fat will give it a good shield. When you take off the baked item, you will see a smooth surface.
6. Parchment Paper
Another great substitute for nonstick cooking spray is parchment paper. Opting for a paper will let you get rid of all kinds of liquidly feel on the pan. This way, you won’t really be needing any kind of grease to cover the pan. Rather, the paper that you will spread around the pan would hold the whole batter pretty well.
This paper is made up of cellulose, which goes through an extensive chemical treatment during its preparation. The silicone treatment on the top gives it the nonstick property, which you can use in your baking later on. One roll of this paper comes with a lot of quantity and you can use it easily for an extended period of time.
7. Olive Oil
Just like bacon fat, using olive oil will also give a distinctive taste to the food that you make. Using the high-quality, non-virgin olive oil will give all your food items a peppery and nutty taste. This new and unusual taste would be the testament of the fact that the oil you are using is of the highest quality.
If you need a nonstick spray for grill grates, olive oil is surely the best bet! You simply need to pour some of the olive oil on a paper towel and rub it across the grills. Make sure to cover all the parts and it will remove all the contents completely. Eventually, whatever you make will come out and no residual will be left. Furthermore, it will give a thicker and voluminous taste to your food as well!
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion
Indeed, a nonstick spray for baking makes things easier. It makes sure that you don’t end up spilling the oil everywhere! However, if you don’t have a nonstick spray in your pantry at the moment, you can always trust the alternatives mentioned above.
