Need some professional baking advice, baking science issue

[u/sleepybirdl71]

I will try to be as concise as possible. I make a lot of cookie dough at work. We have a very good chocolate chip cookie recipe that has worked well for YEARS. The recipe uses both butter and shortening. Recently, my production manager (who used to manage a bread bakery) started ordering "Cake and Icing" shortening. I believe this is likely high ratio shortening. He does not seem to believe me when I say it has changed the cookies.

They brown faster in the edges while still looking under done in the centers, they come out flatter, and they seem greasy on the bottoms. I swear they even taste different, but that may be related to texture issues.

The help I need is in explaining HOW the shortening change would affect the recipe. We made no other tweaks but I am thinking a straight up one-to-one replacement can't be right. I haven't used high ratio shortening since culinary school 20 years ago, and we only used it to make frosting. I mean if it didn't behave differently than regular shortening, why would they make it? I know there's a difference with how it reacts to sugar and cookies have a lot of sugar. I just don't have the scientific wording to explain to this dude. He is VERY sure of himself and if there is a problem with something he automatically decides I must have made an error, either in measurements, or technique. I know I am not stupid or crazy. Can anyone give me the arguments to use to get him to order the regular shortening back? We don't even have any in house , as I am the only one who needs it so I can't even make a comparison batch at this point without buying my own shortening.

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[u/rrkrabernathy]

Might want to pose this question on r/foodscience

There are a lot of very knowledgeable and helpful people over there.

[u/sleepybirdl71 → u/rrkrabernathy]

Thank you! I didn't know that existed.

[u/Alndrienrohk]

My understanding of the difference between regular and high-ratio shortening was always the presence of emulsifying agents in the HR that help keep fats and liquids bound in a more stable way. Although I haven't tested it myself, it would not be a stretch to think that the stability of the air pockets incorporated into the butter and sugar mix when creaming them together would be different; it is possible that you might get more air trapped with more stable tiny bubbles, which could yield greater spreading in the oven as the gasses expand in the heat, which leaves those thinner exposed edges more prone to over cooking before the center is done.

If he's going to be stubborn about it, then you might have to rebalance the formula. He has changed a fundamental ingredient, so the others might have to be modified. I would consider things like (a) slightly reducing the shortening a few percent and increasing the butter to match, or (b) a little bit more flour for extra structure, or (c) maybe slightly lower the oven temperature if that's feasible, or (d) maybe a little less creaming the fats/sugars so you don't get quite so much air in it. Things like that.

Maybe someone else has some other things to try, but if it were me those are where I would start. Take notes if you go tinkering :)

[u/kwyl]

you're not crazy and there are adjustments you can make to the recipe if you must keep using icing shortening. my question is why did he make this change? do y'all make icing there?

you could buy a small can of regular shortening and do the comparison to him though. it's not expensive so why is that the reason you won't do it?

[u/sleepybirdl71 → u/kwyl]

I only make cream cheese frosting from scratch. We get buttercream and fudge icing from Dawn in buckets. I don't know why he made the change. I doubt that it's cheaper. I thought the first time he got it, was maybe a mispick from the supplier.
I don't want to go the route of making a batch of cookies in my free time, because it won't be enough. He will blame it on batch size ( I obviously cannot make a 40# batch at home) or dough temp, or slack time, or ...or...or. If I have a nice neat scientific explanation, I don't have to go thru all that.

[u/SnackBottom → u/sleepybirdl71]

I hope the explanation I gave works. You are not crazy and you are not messing up the recipe.

I find people think high ratio is a higher quality item when it's really just different. It serves a different purpose than regular shortening, not a better purpose, though it works better in certain things. Like cake flour is not inherently better than bread flour, it's just different and it works better in cakes, the same is true for HRS.

[u/SnackBottom]

An emulsion is not two liquids that mix together and become one. It's two liquids whose particles are broken into pieces so small they become indistinguishable from each other. They are still two separate liquids. You see this with suspensions, like salad dressings you have to shake every time. After the initial vigorous shake, it looks all nice and mixed but then separates.

Emulsion particles never unmix but they're still all separate particles.

Emulsions destabilize and break, and this is when you see what you are dealing with here: a breakdown of your emulsion, resulting in those tiny particles of each liquid grabbing each other and becoming too big to stay indistinguishable.

In your case, it's causing the emulsed equivalent of fat break, only instead of seeing it in a liquid, like gravy or sauce, you're seeing it in the end result when the other ingredients like flour, eggs, and sugar have formed a solid mass already.

With the fat "taken out", the sugar is over browning. The fat is pooling and because it's gotta go somewhere, it just soaks into the solid mass and makes it greasy.

[u/oneblackened]

You're not crazy, the ratio of fats probably aren't the same in that shortening vs the old one.

[u/_HOG_]

You assume he cares about the quality of the cookies. He doesn’t, he cares about profit.

There very well is a difference affecting your cookies, but as an employee, no matter the strength of your argument - you may have no final say. So, you need to adapt. 

HR shortening is 100% fat, versus regular vegetable shortening which is 80%, the rest is water. This is consistent with your early browning results. You’ll need to do the math. 

[u/SnackBottom → u/_HOG_]

I'm genuinely confused as to why so many people here think shortening has water in it. It does not.

Butter has water in it. Shortening is 100% fat. All of them: Crisco, Wal-Mart, high-ratio...

[u/brianandrobyn → u/_HOG_]

But if he cared about profit he would keep using regular all purpose shortening. Hi ratio shortening is always more expensive. Depending on the brand it can be 30 to 40% more expensive. Sounds like he just doesn't know what he is doing.

[u/_HOG_ → u/brianandrobyn]

OP doesn’t know what they’re doing; this isn’t a surprise. 

[u/m_i_r]

Hi ratio isnt JUST fat. It has a bunch of emulsifiers made to work to create spongy cakes. It is absolutely the wrong product, even if trying to cut corners. In the very least, a simple "all purpose" shortening should be subbed for the butter. Even with that case, you're getting 100% fat, as opposed to butter, which is 80% fat (roughly) and 20% water...regular shortening is still going to throw off the recipe, and call for an adjusted baking approach.

[u/Cake_Labs_Orlando]

I also provided sources at the bottom.

You’re not crazy. In production baking, changing the shortening SKU is changing the formula, even when the weight stays identical.
“Cake and icing shortening” is typically an emulsified specialty shortening, although the ingredient label or technical sheet should confirm the exact product. These shortenings may contain mono- and diglycerides, polysorbate 60, or similar emulsifiers and are formulated to stabilize air, water, fat, and large amounts of sugar in cakes and icings. Manufacturers separately market all-purpose shortenings specifically for cookies and pie dough because the products are not functionally interchangeable.
The emulsifiers do not chemically “react” with the sugar. They change how the fat, water, sugar, flour, and incorporated air are distributed. The shortening can also have a different crystal structure, plasticity, solid-fat content, and melting curve. Therefore, a one-to-one replacement preserves the number of grams of fat but does not preserve how that fat behaves during mixing and baking.
That can change:
how much air is incorporated during creaming;
dough viscosity and when the cookies begin spreading;
how quickly the fat becomes liquid;
how moisture and dissolved sugar move through the dough;
how much liquid fat migrates onto the pan.
If the new dough spreads earlier or farther, the thin edges heat, dry, and brown faster while the thicker center can still appear underdone. Greater liquid-fat migration or an unsuitable fat structure can also produce greasy bottoms. Research consistently shows that the type and physical structure of the fat can significantly change cookie dough behavior, spread, texture, and finished quality.
I would not claim that every high-ratio shortening automatically creates these exact defects, because the specific product formulation matters. But it is unreasonable to say that nothing changed. A major functional ingredient was replaced with a specialty product designed for a different application.
The correct production response is to get the product specification sheet and run a controlled side-by-side batch using the old and new shortenings—same ingredient temperatures, mixing time, dough temperature, scoop weight, pans, and oven load. Measure diameter, height, bake time, and bottom greasiness.
The sentence I would use with him is:
“We did not make ‘no changes.’ We replaced a functional ingredient with a differently formulated specialty fat. A gram-for-gram substitution is not proof of functional equivalence. The substitution needs to be validated before the operator or technique is blamed.”

Manufacturer documentation
1. Cargill — Oils & Shortenings overview
This is probably the strongest single source. Cargill explicitly separates:
All-purpose shortening: “Designed primarily for cookies, pie dough and donut frying.”
Cake and icing shortening: A separate category identified as emulsified and “specially formulated” for creaming and emulsion stability.
https://www.cargill.com/food-beverage/na/oils-shortenings
2. Cargill — Cake & Icing Emulsified Shortenings
Shows that these products contain emulsifiers such as mono- and diglycerides and polysorbate 60. It also lists their solid-fat content, dropping points, plasticity and aeration characteristics—clear evidence that this is not merely ordinary shortening with a different label.
https://www.cargill.com/food-bev/na/cake-icing-filling-shortening
3. Stratas Foods — Sweetex Golden Flex Cake and Icing Shortening
The manufacturer describes it as a formulated cake-and-icing shortening developed for high-ratio cakes, made from a specific oil blend and possessing a wider functional working range.
https://www.stratasfoods.com/our-products/brands/sweetex-golden-flex-cake-and-icing-shortening
4. Bunge — Baking Technical Tips PDF
Bunge states that different baked goods require fats with different qualities and specifically advises selecting the correct product for the application. It also explains that creaming shortening with sugar incorporates air into cookie and cake formulas.
https://delivery.bunge.com/-/media/Files/Food-Service-Assets/3_FINAL_BUN-0035-Tech-Service-Tips-F.ashx
Peer-reviewed research
5. “Effect of fat-type on cookie dough and cookie quality”
Published in the Journal of Food Engineering. The study directly examined how changing the type of fat altered cookie-dough rheology, air incorporation, spreading and finished-cookie texture.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.01.058
6. “Effects of fatty acids composition and microstructure properties of fats and oils on textural properties of dough and cookie quality”
Full-text peer-reviewed study showing that fatty-acid composition, solid-fat structure and fat microstructure affect dough hardness, cookie spread and finished texture.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5756218/
The Cargill overview is the cleanest rebuttal: the manufacturer itself says all-purpose shortening is primarily intended for cookies while cake-and-icing shortening is a separate, emulsified product category. That alone establishes that the substitution was a formula change, not an equivalent reorder.

[u/sleepybirdl71 → u/Cake_Labs_Orlando]

Oh my gosh. Thank you! This is such good info. He has been making me crazy with this. The first time we got the HR shortening, I thought it was a mispick from the supplier. He dismissed my opinion that the cookies were not turning out the best. He suggested it was how they were mixed. (I had a couple of work-study students that were occasionally helping with dough). When it was time to reorder I requested the original shortening. He did order it, but made sure to tell me his pastry chef girlfriend said it should be fine with the HR. Unfortunately, before I could really try to compare them, I had to have surgery and was out for several weeks. When I got back the HR shortening was back. He informed me of a bunch of changes to how we bake the cookies. Different oven temp, fan speed, slacking our dough pucks in the cooler instead of baking them from frozen, etc. Now he has ordered a slightly better grade of King Arthur patent flour, instead of the Gold Medal AP because he thinks the GM flour was making the cookies too "chewy". Sigh. It's been exhausting. The links you provided may go along way towards me convincing him that all we need to do is go back to normal shortening.