Is shortening healthy?

Shortening for baking and cooking has come back in fad. In 2020, the FDA banned partially hydrogenated oils, also known as trans fats, causing manufacturers to reformulate their shortening product lines. Shortenings are now much healthier using fully hydrogenated oils. Over the years, many older recipes were set aside because of the health concerns with partially hydrogenated oils. These health concerns became apparent with evolving research. Today's reformulated shortenings are much healthier.

Shortening uses

Shortening has unique properties and applications in baking and cooking. Shortenings are solid at room temperature. They help keep the structure of various frostings. They are also translucent to white in color, just what is needed when making an all-white cake recipe, as the shortening will not impart much, if any, color to the cake batter or off flavors. Shortening inhibits gluten formation; therefore, it "shortens" the dough. It gives a crumbly texture like a pie crust versus an intense structure from a developed gluten network like in bread. Shortening is helpful in a variety of baked goods.

You can use shortening in pizza dough, which sounds counterintuitive, as you want to develop gluten. After kneading it sufficiently (3-6 minutes) to create the gluten, add it to the pizza dough mix, followed by more kneading. Shortening in pizza dough leads to a less oily crust and a dough that can be easier for the home cook to work with. It also allows pizza dough to expand when cooking. Shortening is neutral in flavor; therefore, it will enable the flavors from yeast fermentation to be the predominant flavor. The neutral flavor of shortening works well with cold fermented dough.