Personally, and especially if you are baking cookies, I would use butter. By the same token, I would like to recommend Smart Balance which is a 50/50 blend of both butter and margarine. Margarine is made from vegetable oil, and I can tell the difference.

The reason I recommend Smart Balance is because I frequently make popcorn so it tastes like theater popcorn, and I only use real butter, but when I have been out of it I have substituted Smart Balance and I honestly could not tell the difference. There you have it.....

I always use butter in cooking and spread margarine on toast. Margarine has higher water content and may chance the texture of the food. I have not used significant amount of margarine in cooking so can't really comment on that. Al

I'm strictly a butter girl, myself. Have never bought margarine. Linea, what recipes do you prefer with margarine?

Sherry

Here's the skinny on fats & baking (cookies)

Fats
The fats most commonly used are butter, margarine, shortening and oil. Fats play a major role in the spread of your cookie. In other words, they help to determine if your cookie spreads out into a thin mass on the cookie sheet or pretty much keeps its original shape. Shortening, margarine and spreads are fairly stable so they will help cookies keep their original unbaked shape. Butter melts at a much lower temperature, so cookies made with it will tend to spread out. Oil, since it already is a liquid at room temperature, produces cookies that keep their shape. The amount of fat also affects the cookies. You can basically think of it this way: More fat equals flatter and chewier to crispier cookies. Less fat equals puffier and more cake - like cookies.

Other things to keep in mind. Avoid using spreads in cookies unless the recipe specifically calls for one. Spreads can have a significant amount of water in them which evaporates when you go to bake your cookies. Then you are left with shrunken hockey pucks. (Can you tell theis is the voice of experience!)

Also all ingredients should be at room temperature unless otherwise stated in the recipe. This too can affect texture.

I always use butter....(even in the caramel cheetoes, but don't tell!)
The old style of margarine, not the stuff made with poly unsaturated oil and added water, was good for baking...but tasted like "margarine"...the new stuff is awful for cooking.
I don't use it....don't buy it...if I need "vegetable shortning" I use Crisco.
Linda C

Butter, always.

One can easily counteract the cookie-spreading factor by chilling the cookie dough before baking. I either roll it into logs and chill thoroughly (if I make the batter ahead of time) to slice and bake as I need, or chill the sheeted cookies in the freezer or fridge until the batter is quite firm before baking. I never saw this in a cookie recipe, and had trouble with my cookies spreading too much and browning at the edges until I was in my mid-twenties and happened to notice that in the mall cookie shops, they always took the sheet of cookies straight from the walk in fridge/freezer to the oven, and theirs always looked perfect.

I even make my pie crust with half butter and half Crisco because I just prefer the flavor of butter.

I haven't knowingly put margarine in my mouth since I was a teenager and first moved out of my Mother's house. In situations where margarine is served at table rather than butter, I'd just as soon eat my bread dry.

All butter, all the time. :)

Happy to see you call margarine margarine and not butter. I was shocked when this friend said she would bring butter and proudly produced a tub of margarine. Always use butter, occasionally with olive oil when I get a health surge LOL, even when recipe says margarine or oleo. When I learned to cook butter was the only choice for baking, old habits are hard to break. Basically, I prefer one ingredient ingredients.

Rachelellen, I couldn't have said it better!

No margarine in this house.

I really can't say when to use which because I'll use butter even if a recipe calls for margarine.

Mother was convinced butter was The Evil and would kill us all. She never bought it. And my grandmother couldn't afford butter, so she used margarine until she started getting government surplus foods. The last time I bought margarine was the year I got married. DH won't touch it, and I quickly learned to prefer the taste of butter.

Another butter person. I haven't had margarine in the house for decades. Not since those days (1970's) when poverty would have been a step-up for us - when hubby was in college and margarine was all we could afford.

Fat has multiple roles in foods. The size of the fat crystal in the different fats often defined it's uses. For instance, lard has a big crystal of fat, and that made it the fat of choice in pastry. Shortening had the widest range for heat and was cheap, which made it a top choice. While the flavor of butter is generally preferred over margarine, shortening or lard.

Margarine has always been the "red-headed step-child" in the solid fat group. Enough fat in the product to make it work fairly well, but a poor-quality fat crystal and poor flavor.

Both butter and margarine contains about 80% fat, and the general composition is nearly the same (unless you purchase those lovely high-fat butters - yummmm), but the source of the fat is where the rubber meets the road. Butter contains milk fat, and margarine may be made from liquid soybean, corn, safflower, canola, or other partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. In addition, margarines usually contain cultured skim milk, emulsifiers (such as lecithin), mono- and diglycerides, preservatives (a long list of possibilities), vitamins A & D, flavorings (usually diacetyl), food colorings. All those additional ingredients in margarine can have a cause and effect to baked goods. Not to mention a difference in mouthfeel when using margarine, instead of butter. It "feels" different.

Fat tenderizes, increases volume, contributes to structure and flakiness, adds flavor and color, and increases the resistance to staling. Fat even plays a role in heat transfer.

Croissants owe much of their flavor and color to the large amount of butter in them. You'd never get the same thing using margarine.

Both butter and margarine contain their own emulsifiers (about 3%) and about 10 to 12 percent gas by volume, which make them good choices in baked goods. Emulsifiers influence the pore pattern and volume on a loaf of bread. A more open texture when there are no emulsifiers, and a finer grain when there are emulsifiers.

Cookies made with margarine are slightly less crisp than those made with butter.

If your margarine is a "vegetable oil spread", it contains much less fat than margarine - only 65% fat. If you use this type of fat in cookies you'll find these characteristics:

-Softer dough
-Less cookie spread
-Less browning
-Cake-like texture, rather than crisp
-Cookies will be tougher, rather than tender
-Can stick to the baking sheet
-Less buttery flavor
-Quickly stale

-Grainlady

I can't answer your question about when to use butter vs margarine and I haven't had margarine since I started buying my own groceries. Today I did get one of those emails that are share with everyone in the person's contact list.

Pass The Butter .. Please.

This is interesting . .. .

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings..

DO YOU KNOW... The difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end...gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients found in other foods.

Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has few and
only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine...

Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease .
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk.

Decreases immune response..

Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact.... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Pur chase a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends......(If you want to butter them up')!

Chinese Proverb: When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.
Pass the BUTTER PLEASE

When it comes to baking I would never substitute margarine for butter. In recipes that actually call for margarine I use butter.

Ann

Ha ha ha ha! Cathy, I love that!

I am another that will not eat margarine. Cool Whip, either...what IS that stuff?

I'd rather eat a little bit of the real thing than a lot of the phony stuff.

Linda

The cookie that turns out better with margarine is a bar cookie. It is supposed to be a little crisp: with margarine it is, and stays so: while with butter it is crisp on the first day and softer afterward. I looked up some info on the web which discussed the issue but the only conclusion derived (beside that butter just tastes better, which I already knew) was that cookies baked with margarine spread more. Not helpful, since its a bar cookie. I never even have margarine in the house unless I want to make this cookie. With butter the edges of the pan tend to get too brown as well: I have wondered if that was due to the milk solids burning.

Info on size of fat molecule is useful (as well as interesting), because it explains WHY pie crust is flaky when you use lard. Years ago my Mom and I did a side by side comparison of several pie crust recipes: and the lard version won by a mile. I love to know the science behind it.

I do know what "spreads" are and donÂt use them for anything.

Mustangs, I always check such emails through Snopes. That one is a mix of true and false. The turkey bit is false, for one thing.

I just get so tired of the misinformation that gets passed around the internet as fact, that I refuse to forward anything until I check it out. Snopes is a good source, I've never busted them as inaccurate.

Rachelellen, I, too, check Snopes regularly if it's something of interest as I give little credence to those types of emails. I just thought it was timely give this thread and wasn't making any claims to the legitmacy of the email that I shared.

I always, always use butter when baking. Margarine might affect the texture toward one's preference, but I prefer taste over texture.

OK, Linda, you made me curious.

Cool Whip ingredients per Wiki -- Cool Whip is made of water, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut and palm kernel oil (CPKO), sodium caseinate (a milk derivative), natural and artificial flavor, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60 (glycosperse), and beta carotene.[4] In

Casseinate, huh? Guess it's not parve, then. That one ingredient screws it up for the vegans, too.

And here I was always told it was mostly sea algae.

LOL, Renee! I always thought it was "one molecule away from plastic"! Well, at least that's what it tastes like...

Still not gonna eat it!

Linda

Lindac you mention Caramel Cheetos and I did a search but could not come up with the recipe. Could you please direct me to the recipe. Two of my favorite things together has to be good. TIA

Caramel Cheetos® - Linda C
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup margarine - yes, for this one you must use margarine
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 - 21 oz. pkg. Cheetos® - crunchy kind

Mix sugar, margarine and corn syrup in pan. Bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes no longer, stirring often.
Remove from heat and add soda. Stir until light in color and foamy.

Spray a roasting pan (deep 10 x 14) with Pam. Put Cheetos® in pan.

Pour the mixture over Cheetos® and stir, coating each piece. Place in oven at 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes.

Immediately, pour onto wax paper, or cookie sheets, sprayed with Pam. (This is the hard part.) VERY QUICKLY spread out as thin as possible. If not quick and spread out as thin as possible, you will get a big hard glob.

After about 5 minutes, pull/break these apart even more and loosen them from the wax paper. If you don't, you'll have wax paper stuck to them when you go to eat them.

You will regret it if you don't double the batch as guests are going to demand MORE! You can bake batches together and add an extra 20 minutes to bake time. I do them separately because of having to work so quickly to keep them apart at the end. The one batch can almost get too hard while working with the other batch.

I know the post about the margarine was just for interest, and that's how I took that statement, but as a science teacher, I want to point out that one molecule can make a heck of a lot of difference. For example, O2, the way oxygen travels around most of the time on the plant, life giving force, O3=ozone, a toxin. Also where that molecule is placed makes a difference. Margarine is not good for you, that's not the claim I'm making, but neither is butter in large quantities. Or desserts, they are occasional treats. As for baking, I have started to use half and half and I like it. I was once one of those people who wouldn't buy margarine, but now I use it in baking, half and half with butter. That way I get the best of both worlds, butter for the taste and margarine which makes my cookies have the texture and softness I like. But only half margarine. All margarine and they don't have the good taste and mouth feel of butter. I am saving money this way too. And I don't mind about the health hazards of margarine because they go right along with the health hazards of the sugar, processed flour and eggs in the cookies.

Since I live on a dairy farm, it was WONDERFUL to hear all of you say that you prefer butter over margarine and some haven't bought margarine for years! My philosophy when baking, or cooking, is since I'm putting effort into mixing and baking the food, I want to use the best ingredients available. It makes the difference between an o.k. final product or a great, "can I have your recipe?", final product.

Linda - I'm not going to eat it either! Last thing I need in this lifetime is more HFCS and CPKO. I'm not much on whipped toppings anyway, but Cool Whip just does not taste good to me. Real whipping cream and real butter for me, please.

Thank you Linda for the recipe. This is a recipe I must try.

As a retired dairywoman, this thread was a refreshing delight.

I am so tired of the TV "experts" telling everyone how bad dairy is for you.........

I was going to rant on....but won't.

Glad you see so many enlightened people here!

Country Smile and Gldnol, thanks for all the hard work you and your gals put into providing us with good butter! Especially, thanks to your sweet ladies (cows).

I love butter, but don't eat it much, due to the obvious calorie and fat considerations, but I'm not afraid of it as much as I used to be. I went through a phase, I think in the '80's, where I would refuse to eat any fat whatsoever, or as little fat as I possibly could. I was convinced that it was bad for you. Of course, I've learned otherwise since then, and will gladly add olive oil or butter to food when called for and as needed. I just don't over do it - too much. I haven't bought margarine in years. When my family was young I bought margarine, because that's what I was brought up with, and back then, it was supposed to be healthier. Whenever my kids had butter, they didn't like it. I think they've changed their minds by now.

It's interesting that someone said they were disappointed by their friend volunteering to bring the butter, and it turned out she was talking about margarine, as I grew up calling margarine butter, too. Sometimes Mom would call it oleo, because that's what it was originally called, oleo-margarine.

Sally