Photo by Julia Gartland
Your Everything Guide to Thanksgiving

Your Everything Guide to Thanksgiving
Top-notch recipes, expert tips, and more—it's all right this way.
Check It OutPopular on Food52
14 Comments
Famidha A.
January 6, 2021
What would you recommend as a sub while melting chocolate? Like if I have only "eating" chocolate and I want to use it for coating or dipping, the internet suggests adding shortening... and some mentioned vegetable oil in a tiny amount. I never used shortening and have always replaced it with butter successfully but never tried with chocolate and don't want to end up wasting it. :-) What do you recommend?
Smaug
January 7, 2021
The problem is that small amounts of water such as butter contains will cause the chocolate to seize up when melting, so you need something without water. Coconut oil is a popular choice, as is Crisco or salad oil. In a pinch you could boil off the water from some butter- European butter has considerably less water (but you would still need to get rid of it)
Famidha A.
January 7, 2021
Oh yeah the seize! makes sense. Thank you. So I understand it is safe to replace shortening with coconut oil or veg oil.
Mariana T.
December 25, 2020
What if a recipe already calls for butter? Do I just add more on top of what the recipe calls for? FYI- it’s for banana bread.
Mommy
November 17, 2020
So it didnt really answer the question if shortening is bad for you? And would substituting coconut oil would be a healthier alternative? Or if I am making cookies do I just accept that they will not be health food?
augusta54
May 12, 2020
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and well explained article. It gave me even more info than I was looking for.
Smaug
October 4, 2019
Thank you for sparing me my usual tirade on the meaning of the word "shortening" (I hate having the language coopted by commercial concerns). I've already done my yearly rant on the subject of heirloom tomatoes, and I've given up on Food 52's ever more flagitious abuses of the word "genius", so it's Mr. Sunshine from here on out.
Jeff S.
October 4, 2019
Thank you for this! I find myself using chicken fat more and more, though I haven't used it for anything sweet (but should I/you try?!). Folks are obsessed with bacon fat and lard, but chicken fat is underrated, especially for roasted vegetables.





Join The Conversation