I have not used shortening in years b/c I've eliminated hyrdrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils from my kitchen (well, except for what DH brings home, on occasion...)

But recently I've been looking at some old recipes - I mean, like Thomas Jefferson's sweet potato biscuits... and it calls for vegetable shortening. I don't doubt that this recipe has been modified from it's original, but I've found other OLD recipes that call for shortening. What would that be if they didn't hydrogenate back then?

And what would be a decent substitution today? I'm sure I can get by just fine using butter in those biscuits - but I'm not always so sure that butter will have the same result for other recipes - like in dumplings.

So please tell me all you know about this.

TIA!

Really old recipes that call for shortening are referring to lard or meat drippings. Not something that is commonly used in the modern kitchen.

I use coconut oil whenever a recipe calls for shortening. There's also a non-hydrogenated shortening-- I think spectrum makes it.

I sub coconut oil for all shortening.

I usually just use butter where shortening is called for.

You can get lard still. At my grocery store it's sold near the bacon and hot dogs. And it's cheap.

I've used lard on occasion. Like when baking holiday cookies...when the quantity of baking I was doing would make butter an expensive option.

non-hydrogenated shortening works great - I use spectrum

Thanks for the tips! I think I'll keep with butter for the biscuits, but the other recipes I have in mind I'll try coconut oil. AND I'm going to look for this non-hydrogenated shortening - I'm assuming it will be near the regular shortening?

Yes, I also use either butter, non hydrogenated shortening (the spectrum is palm oil, it works well- I get it at the HFS), or coconut oil. Sometimes a mixture of those is great - like for pie crust a 1 part shortening with 2 parts butter is nice!

For some things I would definitely try lard if I had a good clean source.

I also use spectrum.

Spectrum is either in the health food section at Kroger or at the hfs.

Jeni

You can buy the shortening directly from Tropical Traditions, and it's cheaper.