Butter, Shortening, or Cream Cheese: Which is Best for Biscuits? (2024)

FAQs

Is butter or shortening better for biscuits? ›

So what's the final verdict? Butter is the winner here. The butter biscuits were moister with that wonderful butter taste and melt-in-your mouth texture. I'd be curious to test out substituting half or just two tablespoons of the butter with shortening to see if you get the best of both.

High-fat butter, such as Kerrygold Butter, is best. The rich fat from the butter releases water when the biscuits are baking which is what contributes to the beautiful layers and flakiness that we love about biscuits.

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

Shortening is used in most doughs and batters, to give the baked product a crisp and crumbly texture. Rubbing the fat in causes the baked product to have a flaky texture, as the dough is separated into layers.

Shortening (Crisco), bacon fat, margarine all can be used. Cooks will swear by shortening, but I don't like to use it because it changes the mouthfeel of the biscuits to something more akin to plastic than biscuit. I've used oil in a pinch, but butter makes it better.

Cold butter is key to making your biscuits fluffy. Warm butter will be absorbed into the flour and prevent them becoming all fluffy. Its similar to making pie crust. Cold butter will not be fully absorbed by the flour which means you will have small chunks visible in the dough.

Keep the oven hot.

When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.

As it turns out, adding hard-boiled egg yolks to your biscuit dough is a way to ward off an overworked, tough dough that can be the downfall of a butter-based pastry. When the trick is employed, the pastry shatters and then dissolves in your mouth quickly, tasting like a knob of flaky butter.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.

Swap one for the other in recipes. If you want to add additional flavor to the dish, lard is the right choice. Shortening is ideal for its neutral flavor, many professional bakers use it for icing.

Which liquid makes the best biscuits? ›

Selecting the liquid for your biscuits

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

Shortening traps more air bubbles and has a higher melting point than butter, so recipes using shortening tend to produce baked goods with more lift and that hold their shape during baking.

Shortening is a type of fat used in cooking and baking. It's typically made from hydrogenated vegetable oil and has a long history of use in American kitchens that dates back to the early 1900s. However, shortening has fallen out of favor in the past few decades because of its high trans fat content.

You'll notice these differences if baking with butter instead of shortening. Cookies made with butter or margarine may be softer and spread a little more. Cookies made with butter are usually crispier than chewy cookies made with shortening, but the flavor is richer with butter.

Choosing between shortening and lard comes down to personal preference. Both create a flaky, tender crust, are semi-solid, and are 100% fat. Swap one for the other in recipes. If you want to add additional flavor to the dish, lard is the right choice.

Make sure your butter is at the correct temperature – use unsalted butter softened to room temperature for creaming and cold, unsalted butter for biscuits and pastries that require butter to be rubbed into the flour.