1,547 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Butter vs. grease

We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased.

But what's the difference between these 2 terms?

1,887 5/5 (1 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Pastry Technique Mould Fat Butter Cooking Dough

Last modified on: December 1^st 2025

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Butter vs. grease

Let's start with something they both have in common: the aim is to prevent the dough from sticking during baking, and to facilitate removal from the mould afterwards.
To avoid this, you need to coat all the sides of the mold with a thin layer, or film, of fat before pouring in the dough.
During baking, this film will remain in place, reducing or even completely preventing the dough from sticking to the mold.

The difference between greasing and buttering a pastry mould lies essentially in the nature of the product used, and sometimes in the method.

Buttering

"Beurrer" means to apply butter, usually at room temperature, to the sides and bottom of a mold, to create a thin, greasy layer that prevents the dough from sticking.
Buttering is often the traditional method, especially for metal molds, and can sometimes be accompanied by a dusting of flour to further improve demolding.

Grease

"Greasing" a mold means applying a more varied fatty substance, such as butter, oil or cooking spray, for the same non-stick function.
Grease is a more generic term that includes butter as well as vegetable alternatives or oils, used according to the type of mold (metal, silicone, etc.) and recipe.
Silicone molds in particular, although often non-stick, can sometimes benefit from a light greasing, especially on first use or for sweet or rich recipes likely to stick.

In a nutshell:

Butter = to apply butter (often soft, not melted).
Grease = apply a fatty substance (butter, oil, spray, etc.).

Both are designed to prevent the dough from sticking, and to facilitate unmolding.
The choice between the two depends on the type of mold, the recipe, and usage preferences.

These are closely related practices, but "grease" is a broader term that encompasses "butter" among other fat options for preparing a pastry mould.

Lasts posts

Getting out of the fridge early

Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24^th 20251,3635

Who's making the croissants?

When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23^th 20251,260

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20253,7825

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20258,2523

The grease spray

As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26^th 20257,8755

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Sugar syrups

In cooking, and especially in pastry, we often use sugar syrups, a simple mixture of water and sugar in varying proportions. Here is a presentation of their differences. .
January 17^th 202312 K4.8

Oven height

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20256,2134

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20255,9535

The mock CAP baker's certificate exam

The next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days ago we had to go through the mock CAP exam. A sort...
May 1^st 201821 K4.4