How does shortening effect cookies

No matter how you enjoy them, the ingredients you use ultimately determine the flavor, texture and consistency of the cookie. In fact, making a simple switch between butter, shortening and margarine while baking cookies can have drastic effects on your final product.

Shortening has the highest melting temperature. When the cookies are baking, the dough is able to hold its shape for longer before the shortening begin to melt. As a result, the flour and eggs have time to set in place before the cookie begins collapsing.

Margarine and butter only have slightly different melting temperatures, so they offer a similar amount of spread. Using them in your recipe often causes the cookies to spread much more extensively during the baking process. This usually results in flatter, crispier cookies -- and if you're not careful, they will easily burn to a crisp if baked too long. To prevent cookies from spreading too extensively, freeze the dough on the cookie sheets before popping them in the oven.

Margarine and shortening deliver essentially zero flavor to your cookie recipe. Butter, on the other hand, delivers a delectable taste that cannot be matched by any other ingredient. Although you can use butter-flavored shortening, it does not quire replicate the taste of true butter.

When making your decision based on flavor, simply choose the option that most pleases your tastes. In cake making, it is used to tenderize the product by incorporating air in the finished cake batter as well as lubricating the other ingredients allowing the cake to rise more freely and increase the shelf life of the product. This is to ensure proper distribution and aeration of the fat molecules.

Since shortening is non-dairy dairy is an allergen commonly unacceptable in many bakeries , it is used to replace butter. If there is a need to replace g butter, use 80g shortening to obtain similar results. Download our latest paper. It shortens the gluten strands in wheat, which provides three textural attributes in baked goods: A short bite A lubricative moist texture The crunchy or crispy auditory sounds When used in a product, or a the medium to be cooked in, these three textural characteristics are heightened.

Origin Shortening is created from liquid oil by hydrogenation. Liquid: Mainly used in recipes that call for melted shortening, such as cake and bread formulas. All-purpose: Non-emulsified hydrogenated shortening. Used successfully in hi-ratio cakes with the addition of emulsifiers. Cake or icing shortening: All-purpose hydrogenated shortening with one or two combinations of emulsifiers added by manufacturer. Emulsifiers blended into a shortening assist in forming an emulsion allowing the baker to add more water to the cakes.

In this way, it improves the eating qualities of the finished cake by retaining more moisture. Akoh, and Ki-Teak Lee. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Accessed 08 June How about using ghee instead of butter. And then the butter flavor would remain without having to use the shortening.

Butter and shortening have very different melting points and behave differently when baked aside from their different fat contents.

Baking with ghee can be a fun experiment, though! So if you want to use both shortening and butter in a cake recipe for example, would it be equal amounts? Suzanne, I don't see why you couldn't do that. The texture and flavor will be a little different. Can liquid vegetable oil be substituted for butter or shortening in yeast bread recipes? I would like to minimize the saturated fat in the bread. Jeff, if a bread recipe calls for a couple of tablespoons of solid or liquid butter, you'll most likely be fine.

But if the recipe calls for more than that, I would be cautious. Your success will be very recipe dependent. Good luck! What a great article that answered so many questions I've had in mind for too many years. I'm an old guy, single, DIY or die Lol. I recently learned to prep scones with butter, use powdered buttermilk and to get it all together on a platter, cut into wedges and freeze it. Then bake later in bits and servings as the week wore on. Frozen Vs.

Using cake flour helped even more. Just ordered a White Lily flour made from soft wheat I wish to try on muffins. I wish I got older years ago. This is fantastic. I have removed butter from my diet so what can I do to get the spread of a cookie while using Crisco? Do I bake at a higher temp? Add some oil? For flawless chocolate chip cookies, bakers brown their butter — but only some of it. View our privacy policy.

Blog Tips and Techniques Shortening vs. Recipes in this post. Butter Butter is a familiar ingredient. Shortening Shortening on the other hand is a bit more complicated, starting with the name. Shortening vs.