Coconut Oil instead of Shortening

takyris

My wife is health-conscious, and she bought coconut oil for me to use to make my old family cookies. They came out... not good. I'm wondering if anyone does cooking with coconut oil with any regularity, and whether they use something other than a 1:1 ratio when substituting for shortening.

Elin

I don't know that I'd try to substitute oil for shortening at all. It's usually butter for shortening or vice versa. I think it's the solid at room temp thing working for/against the recipe. That's just my logic without really going into the chemistry of cooking.

Here's an online source I found: http://www.foodsubs.com/Fatsoils.html

For baking

General notes: Reducing fat will give baked goods a denser texture; to correct for this, try increasing the sugar in the recipe and/or beating the egg whites and folding them into the batter. Also try using a softer flour, like pastry or cake flour.

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applesauce (Applesauce can replace up to ¾ of the shortening in many recipes. Add with the liquid ingredients and reduce sugar in recipe if the applesauce is sweetened.) OR
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pureed prunes (Pureed prunes can replace up to ¾ of the shortening in many recipes; it works especially well with chocolate. Add with the liquid ingredients.) OR
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apple butter (Apple butter can replace up to ¾ of the shortening in many recipes, also reduce sugar in recipe if the apple butter is sweetened. Add with the liquid ingredients.) OR
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fruit-based fat substitutes (Especially good when baking with chocolate; add with the liquid ingredients. For best results, substitute only 3/4 of the fat with this.)OR
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ricotta cheese (This works well in many yeast breads that call for solid fat. Substitute measure for measure. For best results, substitute no more than 3/4 of the fat with this.) OR
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bananas (mashed) (Substitute measure for measure.) OR
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omit or reduce (In many recipes for quick breads, muffins, and cookies, you can reduce the amount of fat in the recipe by about a third without seriously compromising the quality.
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oil (Avoid substituting oils for solid fats when baking cookies, cakes, and pastries; it will make the dish greasy and dense. If you must do so, substitute 3 parts oil for every 4 parts solid fat and consider increasing the amount of sugar and eggs in the recipe. Pie crusts made with oil aren't as flaky as those made with solid fat.)

meatflower

This thread on Chowhound claims it will make an excellent substitute as long as you have it in its "virgin state". That means it will look like vegetable shortening. Perhaps you had the liquid variety?

Also, treat it as you would Crisco, in that you should use a pastry cutter to work it into the flour creating "pockets" of fat. This will give you the flakiness. I'm guessing you probably do this when you make it with the shortening, but if you've got hydrogenated coconut oil it will be pretty impossible.

takyris

Actually, no, I had it in its solid-state form. It looked and felt a lot like candle wax, actually. And then it made the WORST COOKIES EVER.

Thanks for the advice and the links, everyboth. I appreciate the help.