Cookie Comparison

Cookie comparison

I’m often asked if the butter my recipes call for can be substituted with shortening or oil, so I did a comparison. Here are the results:

Butter: The cookie made with butter was the favorite of my taste-testers. It had characteristic well-rounded flavor and perfect chewiness.

Shortening (Crisco): Nice texture, soft and chewy and didn’t spread as much as the others. However, flavor was shallow and disappointing.

Vegetable oil: The least flavor of the four. This made for a very greasy, oily cookie dough, and the bottom of the cookies were still greasy even after baking and cooling.

Coconut oil: Across the board the least-favorite, but my taste-testers didn’t enjoy the flavor imparted by the coconut oil. It was difficult to incorporate the coconut oil well into the dough and it became very firm and difficult to scoop after chilling.