Haha, this discussion may not be helping me decide on a dessert for Saturday, but it's pretty interesting. Leaf lard in cookies--yea or nay? Shortening? What do we do about old recipes?
It inspired me to take a look at some of my own old family recipes. I had to go to Google to find out that one frequent ingredient, Spry, was a Crisco wannabe that did quite well through the Depression but went out of business in the 50s.
I heard of Spry before but only in passing never really knew what it was. I would definitely use leaf lard in cookies. I use it in pie dough and it's fantastic I imagine it would be the same for cookies.
Real leaf lard is incredible for baking. It has zero pork flavor. It makes baked goods so tender and flakey. It's specifically fat from around an organ. The spleen? Can't remember exactly. I get all my lards and fats from Fatworks. Great little company here in Portland, but they ship all over. Their fats are all from pastured, kindly treated animals.
HLA, no I haven't. I learned about leaf lard after I was already a customer of Fatworks. I was buying their beef tallow and duck fat and then they introduced the pig fat. I pick it up locally from them.
I'll have to try Laurelhurst and T&T. I like both of those establishments.
Thanks sdebrango and hardlikearmour. That's what I thought you'd say. But, with so many people having abandoned shortening and hundreds of people having saved the recipe to collections, I'm hoping someone's figured an adjustment.
Leaf lard would actually be really good in the recipe. I always cut my dough very cold and bake cold but use shortening. I should experiment with this.
I also have not, I adapted from a vintage recipe which used all shortening and have always made according to directions. I use spectrum shortening in mine. Would be interested to see if anyone has but I suspect hardlikearmour is correct and they would spread with butter in the dough.
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It inspired me to take a look at some of my own old family recipes. I had to go to Google to find out that one frequent ingredient, Spry, was a Crisco wannabe that did quite well through the Depression but went out of business in the 50s.
I'll have to try Laurelhurst and T&T. I like both of those establishments.