Substituting butter for shortening

[Mooshmouse]

It's that time of year again and I'm getting ready to fire up the oven for the annual onslaught of Cookie Exchange baking.

I found two great variants of sugar cookies, Coconut Lime and Chocolate Espresso. My question is twofold: is it feasible to substitute butter for shortening and, if so, can the substitution be made on a 1:1 ratio?

Thanks in advance.

[Ling]

I don't think it would make a difference...I do this all the time. The shortening cookies may stay softer for a bit longer.

If you really want to be precise, a cup of butter weighs 227 grams whereas a cup of shortening (or lard) weights 205 grams.

[Cucina]

I wouldn't go there. One of my grandmother's christmas cookie recipes calls for 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup crisco. I was at my mother's for Christmas last year and she asked me to make up a batch - she was out of crisco and said, "just use butter, it'll work." Well, it didn't - the recipie has no eggs in it and that may have been a factor, but those poor cookies just drooled all over the place, didn't taste the same and looked absolutely pathetic.

[JAZ]

Also, don't forget that butter can contain quite a bit of water, which can make a big difference to the texture of the cookies. The only time I tried to sub butter for Crisco, it was a disaster.

[Steven Blaski]

In addition to the water issue (1 cup of butter has about 2 TB water in it that the Crisco lacks) there's also the salt issue -- if you use salted butter the result will be saltier than using Crisco, so you'd need to adjust that, or use unsalted butter.

If you're worried about transfat, Crisco has a transfat-free version of itself -- in a green can. There are some other brands, too.

[mikeycook]

If you use a good, European-style butter, like Plugra or Lurpak, you will reduce the water issue. Also, I would personal recommend never cooking or baking with salted butter. You can always add salt.

[Char]

If you are subbing butter for Crisco, you may also need to change the mixing method or ingredient ratios.

For example, if you are converting a peanut butter cookie recipe to all-butter, you will find that the cookies spread more so you'll have to tinker with the recipe (maybe add more whole eggs or egg whites, less peanut butter, add some granulated peanuts to make up for the flavor, cream the butter and sugar less) to get decent results.

The bottom line is: you can't (and may not want to) make a direct substitution of butter and shortening and be prepared to tinker.

Edited November 19, 2005 by Char (log)

[srhcb]

I guess I'd say, why bother?

In some cases I use the Butter-Flavor Crisco for a little extra flavor boost.

SB (saves the butter for fresh home-made bread!)

[JayBassin]

Has anyone tried using clarified butter instead of Crisco? The clarification process elimiinates the water, so some of the problems alluded to above should disappear.

[Mooshmouse]

Thanks for the input, everyone... all most worthy of consideration.

I seem to remember substituting butter for shortening in a toffee-flavoured version of the same cookies with no real ill effects other than a little extra spreading on the cookie sheet. But, if I have time, I'll do test batches of each and report back on my findings.

Cheers!