Hi, I'm English living in Poland at the minute, I have found some nice American cookie recipes on the internet and some of the recipes include 'shortening', please forgive my ignorance, but please can someone tell what 'shortening' is, thank you so much.

In the US a common brand is Crisco

Vegetable shortening is a cooking fat, made from vegetable oils that have been hydrogenated. My aunt, for example, uses it in her punpkin bread because she thinks its more moist. I've heard it can make cookies more light and crisp but I'm not a baker and I could be completely wrong about that.

Here it can be bought and stored on a shelf. Look in a baking aisle, not the refrigerated dairy section of a market.

The pkg I have says 1 cup of crisco plus 6 teaspoons of water are equivalent to 1 cup butter or margerine.

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Originally Posted by Neelie

Hi, I'm English living in Poland at the minute, I have found some nice American cookie recipes on the internet and some of the recipes include 'shortening', please forgive my ignorance, but please can someone tell what 'shortening' is, thank you so much.

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Hi am from India: from my understanding the Americans use the term "shortening" to describe a cooking fat -that is 100% fat like a hydrogenated fat... but maybe they also use margaine... Happy Baking!