[Sca-cooks] help please - Walnut Bread recipe

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise:
>  > I am using lard instead of suet for two reasons:  the first is 
>that the only suet I can find around here is all sold as not-fit for 
>human consumption (ie: winter feed for the birds). And I don't buy 
>enough beef of any kind (reducing my bad cholesterol effort) to 
>render/obtain my own. 
>>
>>  The second is that lard is close to Crisco in texture and 
>>work-feel.  I will be making the final product using crisco because 
>>the person whose vigil these are intended for is a vegetarian.
>
>Hm... what about margarine or butter? Would they be more like suet in
>texture/work-feel?

There seems to be a relationship between the relative hardness of 
rendered fats and artificial shortenings, and the extent to which 
they are hydrogenated, so I'm not sure of the real health benefits of 
using such substitutes, apart from the simple vegetarian aspect, 
which is still pretty clear.

The trouble is, none of these substitute fats will really behave like 
suet (which is not rendered: if rendered, it's tallow) unless you 
keep them really cold, and since you're then letting the loaf warm 
and rest (either to leaven or gluten rest, or both, although the 
first would take a _lot_ longer than the latter), that aspect becomes 
sort of moot.

Butter might actually be one of the better choices, if you kept it 
really cold in the early stages.

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04