Shortening is a solid fat, almost always made from vegetable oils such as palm or soybean, that is essentially 100% fat with no water. The name comes from what it does in dough: it coats flour particles and “shortens” the gluten strands, so biscuits, cookies and pastries turn out crumbly and tender rather than tough.
Today it is usually produced by blending, fractionating or interesterifying oils to get the right firmness. Older shortenings relied on partial hydrogenation, a source of trans fat; Thailand banned partially hydrogenated oils in food from January 2019. Shortening is found in many Thai-made biscuits, including Koala’s March Chocolate and Pocky Matcha green tea (Thailand), and even in Tasto Signature Original Salted Egg potato chips, next to the salted egg yolk powder.
Unlike butter, shortening normally contains no milk and has a neutral taste, so the flavour of a biscuit comes from its other ingredients.
