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Hmm…I'll have to try the margarine trick to see if it helps with spreading of cookies. Maybe I can try half margarine and half butter.
I try all kinds of tricks…more flour, chill the dough, make sure eggs are room temperature, butter at room temp, different kinds of butter, more baking powder, wait until pans cool completely…..grr…..sometimes I still get flat cookies and I have no idea why. It is frustrating.
Margarine is made from vegetable oil. Nothing plastic about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luvvarkansas
That's because of the plastic.
I visited my sister for dinner and she served one of those "super healthy" margarines to spread on the steaming hot baked potatoes. I put a pat of that margarine on my potato and it absolutely refused to melt. I kept exclaiming in amazement, "It won't melt!?!?! It won't melt?!?!" She got annoyed with me for criticizing her margarine choice. But I think that proves the "margarine is plastic" crowd is correct.
I also grew up on margarine, mostly because it was cheap, with 9 of us kids. My sister the nutritionist at a hospital warned us that margarine is far worse for you that real butter. She recommends using olive oil as a better substitute, or butter, in moderation. They both have the same number of calories, but many margarines contain trans fats, worse for the heart than saturated fat, and also increases cholesterol. And it tastes lousy compared to butter.
I don't see how olive oil can be used as a substitute for butter. I use butter for the flavor, which is nothing like the flavor of olive oil. I use olive oil where olive oil is called for.
I was raised on margarine and I never liked it. I was blown away the first time I went to Europe and ate real butter. I have always bought butter since then. Preferably unsalted.
That's all...I don't know anyone that buys it.
Anyone use it still and how come?
(I was thinking health wise, it probably tastes good.)
I hate it. I was raised on Breakstone whipped butter. I can taste transfats in foods and I find the taste repulsive. My son is a strict vegan and these days I do buy Earth Balance, with is a butter substitute and is edible.
For a baked potato, and with bread, I still use a bit a whipped butter.
In the '40s, butter was rationed and very hard to get. My Gram had to use margarine for her weekly baking. A bag of white shortening with a pellet inside that was massaged in until the color resembled butter-yellow.
Once the war ended and butter became available again, no more oleo for us.
She did use lard for pie crust, though. Nothing better.
I use butter exclusively. I only use a pound every six or eight weeks, except when I'm baking Christmas cookies.
Like many, I grew up on margarine. In fact we called it butter. Older generations called it "oleo".
My wife uses Smart Balance. Is that margarine? I only know it's not butter and it's sold in the butter aisle.
I hear tell that in the state of Wisconsin, a big dairy state, margarine was not allowed to be dyed yellow until some time in the 1950's. Prior to that, wherever it was sold they gave you a yellow dye pack to mix into the white stuff to make it look like butter! In the 1930's, state food boards began allowing dye to be added at the factory.
I use smart balance made out of olive oil. I never put butter on food, or margarine, but do use it in cooking, sauting mostly, so it works well. Butter is wasting money for me since the ones I bought ended up being tossed since I never got around to using them.
I make a sauted mix of onion and garlic and other stuff as a toping and you wouldn't be able to tell if there was butter there, and it might burn.
I visited my sister for dinner and she served one of those "super healthy" margarines to spread on the steaming hot baked potatoes. I put a pat of that margarine on my potato and it absolutely refused to melt. I kept exclaiming in amazement, "It won't melt!?!?! It won't melt?!?!" She got annoyed with me for criticizing her margarine choice. But I think that proves the "margarine is plastic" crowd is correct.
The margarine I use melts just fine. I've never seen one that would not.
I don't see how olive oil can be used as a substitute for butter. I use butter for the flavor, which is nothing like the flavor of olive oil. I use olive oil where olive oil is called for.
One reason I really like smart balance made with olive oil is it retains the taste. I love the taste of olive oil but cooking with it is dicey. I use canola oil to saute things. We didn't use butter and I don't find the taste bad but nothing special either. A little of the olive oil spread in canola oil will give you the flavor without watching it so close for burning much as you can do with butter if that is the taste you want.
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