Lard vs. shortening

S

shaun-in-to

Well-known member
Having read countless times what great pastry real lard -- the rendered-pork-fat kind, not the suspicious-stuff-on-the-supermarket-shelf-for-six-months kind -- makes, I was happy to find some at an organic butcher. And it DID make wonderful pie crust (mixed with butter -- I wasn't quite ready to do all lard).

But then we made sugar cookies (the recipe called for lard) and they had an off-putting aftertaste we couldn't quite pin down. It was almost bitter. It made me think of caramel, but there was no sign of burnt sugar on the cookies.

So do y'all use real lard in cookies, or reserve it for pie crusts (and, I guess, fried chicken)?

 
Haven't used lard for pastry, even, in years, but it is terrific stuff. Never for cookies and not

for fried chicken either.

There are some fried 'meats' that we like with lard.....weiners and onions, for example. Can't think of any more at the moment but I know the're there. Perogies, unless lots of bacon fat is available.

My mom used to make perfect and thin pastry with Tenderflake lard. That's all she ever used for pastry and it wasn't agumented with butter. She did chicken in Jewel shortening. Her chicken was good stuff too.

 
I had the same experience

with an old fashioned spice cookie that sounded fabulous, but the same aftertaste that I decided I didn't like. But man the pie crusts! And schnitzels along with that fried chicken!

 
Lard rules for pie crusts and frying tortillas

I've never used lard for cookies- but I do know that aftertaste.

A good friend of our family used to love nothing better than a hunk of warm chocolate cake with gooey chocolate frosting slathered with a layer of lard about 1/2" thick. He died years ago.....

 
OMG. what would the lard add to that chocolate cake? then there's schmalz, slathered

thickly on good rye bread and sprinkled with salt till it crunches. I had many of those as a child. good thing I haven't had one in about 40 years.

 
If you can find an Amish cookbook, they often use lard in cookies. Maybe comparing

their recipes might give you an idea of what they add to make them taste good---or maybe they just like the taste.

 
Just last weekend I took a pie baking class at Zingermans Bakehouse

in Ann Arbor (www.zingermansbakehouse.com)specifically because in the class we were making: all butter crusts, lard and butter crusts, and just shortening crusts (the latter which we did not actually bake w/) - to see the difference in 1) incorporating the fats into the pie dough (lard is quicker/easier than butter alone and shortening is quicker/easier still, and 2) tasting the difference.

Loved the butter and butter & lard crusts (no lard only crusts) - the shortening only had little taste. The instructor explained that the only lard to use is a specific type of lard (which I don't remember off the top of my head)to give a clean flavour.

Anyway...Zingerman uses the all-butter crust for almost all of their crusts - the exception being their apple pie that uses the lard/butter combo. The apple pie was, indeed, delicious.

As a note about crusts - after making pie dough that day for 6 pies - all by hand, I will not use a processor again to make a crust. It was so easy. One of the 'secrets' to the sucess, I believe, is that they receive 1/4 of the fat (butter in this case) to incorporate into the dough at the last minute. I'm happy to post their pie dough 'recipe and technique' if anyone is interested in it.

Deb

 
Deb, please post recipes and tecnique. I love baking pies and am always looking for the perfect

crust. Thanks

 
Deb, I'm sure I've mentioned this before...

but when my grandmother made pies, she took a big ceramic bowl, filled it with flour, then worked the fat in. After that, she would take a jar of ice water and pour a little in. She would work her hand around in the big bowl and come up with the dough for one pie crust. She'd pat that together, roll it out, then take the ice water and pour a bit more in to repeat until the bowl of flour/fat was gone. She never measured a thing. That was a technique refined with thousands of pies under her belt by then (she used to cook for the farm hands and made plenty of pies--they were cheap since they had apple orchards and pigs smileys/wink.gif.

I for one have never really liked the textural difference in food processor pie crusts. They're not as flaky as the hand method. I would love to hear about your experiences and the techniques you learned in your class.

 
Oh, MY, --GOONESS! The best tortilla chips I have EVER eaten were fried in lard. . .

I still remember them, after 30 years (!).

I refuse to make them at home with lard because I don't think I could stop eating them!

 
Easy, take your favorite piecrust recipe. . .

if it is an all butter one, and sub in lard for half of the butter. Keep all the fat cold and cut in as usual. Very nice.

 
Are you teasing me? I agree. I can't stand tamales with processed lard, or, heaven forbid,...

...shortening! Yuck.

Homemade rendered pork lard is the way to go.

Michael

 
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