A Baker’s Input on Butter vs. Shortening - Little Rae's Bakery - Wholesale Cookies (2024)

FAQs

A Baker’s Input on Butter vs. Shortening - Little Rae's Bakery - Wholesale Cookies? ›

Unlike butter, shortening is 100 percent fat. It is derived from vegetable oils and does not contain any water. Without any water, no steam is created during the baking process, which results in textures that are softer and tenderer.

Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren't as flavorful.

Shortening traps more air bubbles and has a higher melting point than butter, so recipes using shortening tend to produce baked goods with more lift and that hold their shape during baking.

Health Concerns. Shortening is made from hydrogenated vegetable oil which can contain trans fats – meaning they increase your bad cholesterol levels while decreasing your good cholesterol levels. This type of fat has also been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular problems.

Cookies made with butter, especially high-sugar recipes, tend to be flatter and crispier than cookies made with shortening. Because of butter's low melting point, the dough tends to spread during baking before the structure sets.

In general, you can use a 1:1 ratio when substituting butter instead of shortening. However, making this substitution may slightly alter the texture of your baked goods. Why? Shortening is solid, 100 percent fat.

Shortening is a type of fat used in cooking and baking. It's typically made from hydrogenated vegetable oil and has a long history of use in American kitchens that dates back to the early 1900s. However, shortening has fallen out of favor in the past few decades because of its high trans fat content.

Swap one for the other in recipes. If you want to add additional flavor to the dish, lard is the right choice. Shortening is ideal for its neutral flavor, many professional bakers use it for icing.

Nutrition: Crisco vs butter

Butter is also higher in cholesterol compared to Crisco. But that doesn't make Crisco healthier than butter. The FDA recently banned trans fat, so Crisco is now trans-fat-free. However, shortening is still highly processed.

Avoid products that list hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. Avoid colorings, additives and gums; these are chemicals added for aesthetic, texture or shelf-life.

Which butter should not be used for baking? ›

By Jessie Sheehan for Food Network Kitchen

Although you might typically keep salted on hand for spreading on toast (one of life's great pleasures: a thick slice of toast with salted butter . . .), it's not the best for baking.

Too much butter will result in a very soft, sticky dough that's difficult to shape, and bakes up greasy and dense.

Crisco® all-vegetable shortening will make your cakes moist, pie crusts flaky, and cookies soft and fluffy, with 0g of trans fat per serving*.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

Also, underbaking them by a minute or 2 will help them retain a dense, chewy bite, explains Jenny McCoy, pastry baking arts chef-instructor at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York. Adding more moisture to your dough in the form of extra butter, egg yolks, or brown sugar will make your cookies even softer.

The job of butter in baking (besides being delicious) is to give richness, tenderness and structure to cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. We alter the way butter works in a recipe by changing its temperature and choosing when to combine it with the other ingredients.