Shortening comes from ‘to shorten’, which means ‘to cut short or to cut back’. Shortening serves to inhibit the formation of gluten from wheat when the bread mixture is mixed.

Shortening often referred to as "White Butter" is an edible fat and is often used to make bread dough, butter cream, to frying.

Shortening and its derivations are made from 100% fat, some from vegetable fats or animal fats or a mixture of both that has become purified and odorless. Shortening function is emphasized to make bread dough tenderer and more delicious when eaten. With 100% of fat content, shortening can also be used for frying.

Actually it is not difficult to distinguish the shortening, any edible fat product made from 100% fat can be categorized as shortening. In Indonesian culinary, there are some types of shortening known like White Fat, Baker's Fat, Cake Fat, Frying Shortening, Pastry Fat, and many more.

If it can be used to fry, then what makes it different from cooking oil? From the composition, they’re almost the same, the most obvious difference is the shape. Frying fat is solid, even though it will melt when it is heated.

Shortening and Margarine Differences

Simply and easily, the difference between shortening and margarine lies in its contents. Shortening is made from 100% fat, but margarine contains some water in it. Shortening doesn’t contain water at all. Another visible difference is their colors.

In general, margarine is yellow, and shortening is white, so it’s more commonly known as “white butter”. But there are some exceptions for some products, i.e., unsalted margarine and uncolored margarine, as well as colored shortening like BOS (Butter Oil Substitute), which has color and aroma.

Types of Shortening

Because of its flexible characteristic, we now have various kinds of shortening with its own functions and uses. This is very beneficial for the bakery chefs because it will facilitate them to create and make the new kind of bakery.

White Fat

White fat is a pure shortening, it contains only fat without any emulsifier, for example, the shortening used to make white bread.

Baker’s Fat

One of the shortening with emulsifier addition. The texture of this emulsified shortening is very firm and not easy to melt, for example, the shortening used to make the buttercream or biscuit cream filling.

Cake Fat

Cake fat is an emulsified shortening with the addition of color and aroma to enrich the character of a cake.

BOS (Butter Oil Substitute)

BOS is a shortening specifically made as the substitution for butter oil. It has the same melting point as butter oil, and with the addition of emulsifier, color, and aroma.

Pastry Fat

This shortening has the highest melting point. It is usually used to make the puff pastry that needs stiff dough processing. This shortening is very useful to make the layers in puff pastry.

The flexibility of a shortening makes it much needed by the bakers. With so many shortening variants, the bakers can have more room to create. Shortening can be used to make white bread, buttercream, cake icing filling, biscuit, puff pastry, cake, to pia.

So, what should be put into consideration when it came in choosing the good shortening? First, pay attention to the retail price. The competitive retail price and good quality will give you more profit. Eating quality, the products’ quality when it is eaten should be good. This result depends heavily to the good quality of shortening ingredients. Yield, the number of products produced by this shortening should be put into consideration too. This yield can determine whether this product is economically good or not.

The use of high quality shortening can help maximizing the products’ quality so it became more durable, tasted good, and give optimal profit.

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