Wonderful shortening
The reason why crispy bread tastes so attractive is that it contains fat-shortening. Butter is a special kind of fat, which can keep a semi-solid shape similar to butter in the temperature range of 10℃ ~ 40℃. If they are added to the pasta, the fat isolates the gluten in the flour, reduces the toughness of the dough, improves the ductility of the dough, and can also "trap" a certain amount of air in the dough to increase the volume of the dough, thus forming a crisp taste. In crispy bread and biscuits, the amount of shortening is as high as 30% ~ 40%.
So, what is this wonderful "shortening" made of? Traditionally, it is made of butter, but at present it is mainly made of hydrogenated vegetable oil and coconut oil, plus emulsifiers and antioxidants. Hydrogenated oil is the main component, which is made from vegetable oil by artificial catalytic hydrogenation. Vegetable oils such as soybean oil are inherently rich in unsaturated fatty acids and are a liquid with good fluidity. After hydrogenation, its fluidity becomes worse and it becomes semi-solid like butter, which is often used to make "margarine" or "margarine". Margarine can be almost confused with natural butter with a small amount of butter essence and carotene. Because of its low cost and abundant supply, it is more popular with manufacturers than real butter in snack candy industry. Therefore, the so-called cream cake, cream bread and cream candy are actually added with margarine. At the same time, hydrogenated oil is also widely used in western cooking industry, and the food fried with it has good color and crispness, so delicious cakes, French fries and American fast food should also be made with a lot of margarine.