Problems with Transfat-free Crisco

[Cookie Elf]

All my Mom's old recipes used Crisco. Now my favorite cookie doughs are gooey and thin, and the cookies don't flufff up when baking. I believe the new formulation of Crisco is the culprit. Has anyone found a way to cure this? More flour? Different type of fat (maybe lard?)

Please help save my holiday baking!

 

[jabbur]

Try butter. I found that for cookies, nothing works better. If you can't bring yourself to go all butter, you can try half butter half crisco. One of my recipes I use half butter and half margarine (I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) and they come out good.

 

[vyapti]

I've read that coconut oil is a good replacement for shortening.

 

[Alix]

Try chilling the dough a bit before scooping and baking. That sometimes helps. Butter will make them taste better but they'll still be soft. Lard will poof them up a bit so maybe 1/2 shortening 1/2 lard?

 

[Cookie Elf]

Hmm...
I went to Whole Foods today and found the coconut oil, which sounds great and looks like a good consistency, but I think it will cook too hot, like the butter. I bought the 365 brand of "shortening," so we'll give that a whirl, but I'm not optimistic.

Just to clarify, these are doughs which I put through a cookie press or (different recipe) roll out and cut. I am also suspicious of the eggs in each recipe. I'm guessing our 21st century eggs vary in size much more than the 1955 eggs?

I have explored the Crisco.com site which has numerous questions on this topic but no solutions I could find.

Still exploring.........

 

[luvs]

i'd toss that butter to the wind; as we learned very quickly in cooking school, butter-based doughs can take substanstial effort; unless you're extremely efficient & well-paced, that dough'll likely fail. we worked on cold tables & often that dough wouldn't succeed.

 

[jabbur]

I use all butter in my press cookies without a problem. I'm not sure what luvs is talking about. When I make press cookies with anything but butter, the dough is too oily and the cookies don't form well out of the press. I'll find my recipe and post it in the morning. It came from the 1950's cookie press set my mom got as a wedding present.

 

[Alix]

Oh geez, cookie press cookies are different! I use butter in all mine too. My recipe for most of the plain ones is just 2c butter, 1c icing sugar, 4c flour. Then add a drop or two of the desired color to the dough.

I've got lots of variations, but that one is a no fail. No eggs either.

 

[jet]

Won't using butter cause the cookies to spread even more?

 

[Alix]

Depends on the recipe you use I think. Generally speaking, yes butter will make the cookies spread. The recipe I posted is one specifically used with press cookies so the dough is very firm. I don't find the cookies spread too much at all.

 

[jet]

Depends on the recipe you use I think. Generally speaking, yes butter will make the cookies spread. The recipe I posted is one specifically used with press cookies so the dough is very firm. I don't find the cookies spread too much at all.

I'm sorry, my comment was too vague. I was talking about switching a Crisco recipe to use butter.

 

[jabbur]

Okay, sorry about the delay but here is the recipe I use for press cookies using butter. I never have a problem with it either. It came from the 1950's Mirro cookie press kit my mom had.

1 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
2-1/4 c. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla ( I sometimes sub almond or butter rum flavoring)

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, flour, and other dry ingredients, last add the vanilla
Mix well. can add food coloring to mix to make colorful cookies without adding more flour.
Fill cookie press and form on ungreased cookie sheets bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 mins.

Hope this helps you our cookie.

 

[luvs]

I use all butter in my press cookies without a problem. I'm not sure what luvs is talking about. When I make press cookies with anything but butter, the dough is too oily and the cookies don't form well out of the press. I'll find my recipe and post it in the morning. It came from the 1950's cookie press set my mom got as a wedding present.

let me clarify then; we went sans the luxury of cookie presses & also worked doughs like crossaint. wasn't that neat & tidy for us. & the OP wasn't looking for cookie press info.

 

[Alix]

luvs, the OP IS looking for cookie press info. That was a later post.

Just to clarify, these are doughs which I put through a cookie press or (different recipe) roll out and cut. I am also suspicious of the eggs in each recipe. I'm guessing our 21st century eggs vary in size much more than the 1955 eggs?

 

[luvs]

my oops. if i'd read that in the original post, i suppose i may've posted differently.

 

[Randy_]

......I'm guessing our 21st century eggs vary in size much more than the 1955 eggs?

I'm guessing that just the opposite is true.

Not to long ago, I was doing a little math thing to see which size eggs were the most economical to buy. During the course of that exercise, I weighed the individual eggs in several boxes to see what sort of size variation there was and was surprised to see that the eggs varied only a little. As I recall, there was not more than ± 1/4 oz. variation in the egg sizes. Of course, I don't know what eggs were like in the 50's; but it is hard to believe that they were any more uniformly sized than the boxes I bought for my test.

 

[jabbur]

luvs, I hope you didn't take offense to my comments. I was only trying to state my ignorance of culinary things. I only know what I've been taught by my mom and grandmas. I follow their lead most of the time except I will take some short cuts with recipes (buying bread crumbs, pie crusts, etc). I've never gotten the hand of bread doughs so I'm sure I'd never be able to do croissants after reading your post! : 0 I remember one Christmas I ended up throwing out a triple batch of cookie dough made with crisco (the butter sticks they make) because it was too oily and the dough wouldn't come out of the press well. I added more and more flour but it never changed.

 

[Lizannd]

Re 1950 eggs. When I use an old recipe I now use extra

large eggs. A former egg farmer explaned that the size of the eggs,(large, extra large etc.) is based on the weight of a dozen. For example if 1 dozen large eggs must weigh 24 ozs. then the easiest way to make that happen, before all the computerized equipment available now, used to be to simply have every egg in the dozen weigh at least 2 ozs. I noticed years ago that some of my older recipes were coming out to dry and now I use extra large or add a little bit of extra egg if all I have are large eggs. I have also just tried to pick out the biggest eggs in the carton and use those.
Which of course all this has nothing to do with trans fat free crisco. I don't have any recipes for cookies that use shortening so I haven't come across your problem. Is there a store brand of shortening available. Where I live there is one store that has their own brand of EVERYTHING. Sometimes at the expense of the national brands unfortunately.

 

[Cookie Elf]

Lizannd -- Thanks for the 2-ounce egg info. Mine weigh in at 2.375 to 2.5 oz. So that's quite a bit over. Interestingly, one of my old recipes (Grandma's!) for a cake tells exactly what the volume of the liquid eggs should be in a measuring cup, 2/3 cup for instance.


Jabbur -- Thanks for posting the recipe. I still have the Mirro box and your post prompted me to look at the original recipe book. Specifically, it calls for 1 cup shortening, with an asterisked note that "Any solid shortening may be used. For flavor, use at least half butter or margarine." So I'm going to try it out your way!