Crisco is a brand of shortening produced by The J.M. Smucker Company popular in the United States.
Shortening is partially hydrogenated oil. it's usually vegetable oil that has gone through a hydrogenation process to make it thicker and solid. It is really, really bad to eat this! This is the process that creates trans fats, which are even worse than saturated fat.  Best Answer: fat! use butter, vegetable oil or margarine! use in equal amounts as listed for shortening! they ere referring to something like crisco shortening! I always substitute butter for shortening--always, always, always. I just can't get past the can of Crisco. In some cakes you could also substitute oil for the shortening but again you would have to reconfigure the amount of liquid that you would then add. You can also use prune butter to reduce the amount of fat in the cake. There is a commercial brand made by Baker's which will give you the exact substitution equivelents. Originally shortening was synonymous with lard, but with the invention of margarine by French chemist Hippolyte Mege-Mège mouries mouriès, in 1869 margarine also came to be included in. the term The opposite of a short dough is a long dough or dough that stretches. Vegetable shortening (or butter, or other solid fats) can produce both types of dough; the difference is in technique. Shortening is any fat that is solid at room temperature and used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. Shortening is used in pastries that should not be elastic, such as cake. Although butter is solid at room temperature and is frequently used in making pastry, the term shortening seldom refers to butter, but is more closely related to margarine. The opposite of a short dough is a long dough or dough that stretches. Vegetable shortening (or butter, or other solid fats) can produce both types of dough; the difference is in technique. Shortening is fat used for cooking. It can be made from animal, vegetable or compound manufactured substances. Margarine and Crisco are examples of manufactured shortening products.  Shortening is hydrogenated vegetable oil. It is similar to margarine. Margarine is made to mimic the consistency of butter, whereas Shortening is made to mimic the consistency of rendered animal fat (lard, tallow, etc.). misantropology · 5 years ago. shortening noun [U]. › a ​type of ​solid ​vegetable ​oil, or sometimes ​butter or ​lard (= ​fat from ​animals), that is used in ​cooking, ​especially to make ​pastry ​soft and crumbly (= ​easily ​broken). (Definition of shortening from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press).  Crisco is a brand of shortening produced by The J.M. Smucker Company popular in the United States. Introduced in June 1911 by Procter & Gamble, it was the first shortening to be made entirely of vegetable oil. Additional products marketed by Smucker under the Crisco brand include a cooking spray, various olive oils, and other cooking oils, including canola, corn, peanut, olive, sunflower, vegetable and blended oils. Shortening is a solid white fat product made from vegetable oils, using the technique known as hydrogenation discovered at the beginning of the 1900s. The word is older than that, though. Thus, shortbread, made with flour which has gluten in it, has a mass of butter added to shorten the product and make tender shortbread cookies. Shortening certainly acts like this in pie crusts. Its role in cake batters, however, is a bit different. shortening noun [U]. › a ​type of ​solid ​vegetable ​oil, or sometimes ​butter or ​lard (= ​fat from ​animals), that is used in ​cooking, ​especially to make ​pastry ​soft and crumbly (= ​easily ​broken). (Definition of shortening from the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press). 
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what is american shortening