A recent news article said that KFC is trying to phase out trans-fats (without need of the government forcing them, by the way), but has so far been unsuccessful in finding an acceptable substitute for biscuits. Do you remember how people pitched a fit when they found out that McDonald’s had been secretly injecting beef flavor into the vegetable oil they use for frying? Do you REALLY believe that animal products can be substituted for vegetable shortening without people bitching to high hell about it? C’mon…
Do you know why they stopped frying them in beef fat? Because the health-Nazis pressured them to. Because in the 70’s and 80’s, cholesterol was the big boogie man. Cholesterol was the evil poison that needed to be eradicated from society. So all the fast-food places switched to vegetable shortening, and this was supposed to save us all from premature deaths from heart disease. Now vegetable shortening is the big boogie man. Do you really wonder why people are skeptical about this stuff?
Fat-free biscuits? Such an abomination wouldn’t be worth the energy it takes to fling them straight from the oven to the garbage can.
Well then they’re not looking very hard. No recipe for biscuits that I have (and I have plenty) calls for hydrogenated anything. It’s simply unnecessary.
Of course hydrogenated vegetable oil is not necessary, but biscuits do requre some kind of solid fat. KFC needs to find an acceptable substitute in the sense that they need something that 1) isn’t prohibitively expensive, as I imagine butter would be, or 2) equally if not more unhealthy, and unacceptable to consumers, such as lard. I can’t imagine this is a very easy task.
If you can;t fins a recipe that calls for shortening, the you are the one who isn’t looking hard enough.
Plus, the smoke point of butter isn’t high enough to create an extremely short biscuit. Many biscuit and pie crust recipes call for a combination of butter (for flavor) and shortening (for its smoke point). A hundred years ago, people often used lard instead of shortening if they didn’t want to use 100% butter.
That is true…butter tastes great, but its properties aren’t always great for baking. I think I mentioned earlier, I use 1/2 butter & 1/2 shortening a lot of times in cooking, to balance flavor and texture. It’s just not as easy to replace shortening as you might think. We’ve been talking a lot about biscuits, but shortening is an essential ingredient in a lot of baking if you don’t want to use lard (and I can think of several very good reasons that one might not want to use lard).
No, I don’t and there aren’t. :rolleyes:
lowbrass and my final item was “New Trans-fat free Crisco” which is animal fat free. McD’s got in a tiny bit of trouble for adding beef flavour as they didn’t divulge that additive. The Hamburgers contain a fair amount of beef note.
Yes there are. I’ve discussed them. You have failed to address any of them.
Cite? Link? All I have seen is “biscuits”. :rolleyes:
Then you haven’t read the thread. I’ve explained about trans fat shortening’s properties, which are collectively quite unique.
If all you’ve seen are “biscuits”, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Cite? Link?
From Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for More Food, page 59:
"-Shortening remains plastic at a much wider temperature range than any other solid fat.
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Shortenings like Crisco contain emulsifiers that help batters & doughs come together faster.
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Unlike butter, shortening is 100% fat.
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Although they’re made from vegetable oils that are high in unsaturated fats, shortenings are partially hydrogenated, which makes them mostly saturated"
“Shortening is amazingly useful stuff because stuff because it’s everything butter isn’t. It remains plastic between 98F and 110F, which means that shortening will be workable when butter would be either rock hard or soup.”
He goes on to point out that shortening is actually about 90% fat and 10% air, and that small amount of air is very valuable as a levener.
He also says that there is a good chance that trans fats may be even more harmful than the saturated fats they were designed to replace - a notion I have never disputed.
If you need a cite to show you that shortening has a higher smoke point than butter, or that solid fat is preferable to liquid when baking, or the fact that vegetarians prefer shortening to lard, then I would guess that you are being difficult on purpose.
Yeah, no shit. It would be as difficult as reading THIS thread, where I already posted such a recipe. Or googling “biscuit recipe”.
“tiny bit”? Uh, no.
What is beef note? And what is your point?
I guess I just don’t understand this health craze in NYC. I was similiarly confused when they banned smoking inside.
If I want to run a restaurant that caters to patrons who like to smoke and get fat, shouldn’t I be allowed to? Maybe a sign on the door saying “Eating here will cause you to die significantly sooner, but it’ll be fun while it lasts”.
Joke all you like, but I would so go there right this minute if it were around here. I could use me a good burger.