What is the difference between using shortening and butter

Now that you know you'll be set to go if you're in a bind and need to swap butter for shortening, you can keep practicing your baking skills with less worry.

Get a headstart on your holiday baking with some freezer-friendly cookies. Or to see both butter and shortening work their magic together, try our best-ever chocolate chip cookies. By Katlyn Moncada Updated September 15, Save Pin FB More.

Credit: Kritsada Panichgul. Cookies made with butter or margarine may be softer and spread a little more. Cookies made with butter are usually crisper than chewy cookies made with shortening, but the flavor is richer with butter. So if you need a substitute for shortening in cookies, a one-to-one butter swap will work great.

In cakes and breads, the substitution is rarely noticeable when using shortening vs. You shouldn't have any issue when substituting butter for shortening here. Piecrust made with butter or margarine will not be as flaky as one made with shortening. If you're a fan of flaky, you may not want to substitute butter for shortening in pie crust. See our tips for making an all-butter piecrust if you're set on using it.

Comments 2 Add Comment. View Comments. After graduating from St. Shortening and lard have BHT, to which I am allergic. Is there an adjustment I can make to recipes when using butter that would create results similar to shortening?

Hi Chris. There is not a standard that can be applied to every recipe to get the same result when baking with shortening. Even though comparing the ingredients for these two fats are clearly different, shortening and butter are often used interchangeably in recipes with acceptable results. We would use the same amount of butter in most recipes calling for shortening. Happy Baking!

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? In other words, it should be a one-to-one swap. If your recipe calls for one cup of butter, you can use one cup of shortening and vice versa.

Does your recipe call for salted butter? Add a pinch of salt to the shortening for a closer match. In fact, combining them can result in a soft-yet-flaky best of both worlds situation. When in doubt, though, doing as the recipe suggests is always a safe choice.

Because the water in butter produces steam which produces gluten , it yields a flakier final product. Shortening is percent fat. It produces softer, more tender baked goods. It adds no taste. Shortening: What's the Difference?