Tropical fats such as palm oil (PO) from Elaeis guineensis (oil palm), cocoa (Theobroma cacao
L.) butter (CB), avocado (Persea americana) oil (Avo), palm stearin (PS), and Mee (Madhuca
longifolia) fat (MF) are useful raw materials for the formulation of bakery shortenings. Blending
these fats at differing ratios such as binary [MF:PS (99:1)], ternary [Avo:PS:CB (84:7:9)], and
quaternary [PO:PS:SBO:CB (38:5:52:5)] would lead to fat mixtures as replacement for lard
(LD). In the present work, the influence of these three fat blends and LD on cookie dough
textural properties and cookie quality was investigated. The results showed that the hardness of
cookies was correlated to the hardness of dough, which was influenced by the solid fat content
(SFC). The degree of unsaturation of triacylglycerol molecules also seemed to influence these
parameters. Nevertheless, the cookies of all different types of shortenings did not show any
significant differences with regard to their width and thickness. This could be probably due
to the fact that cookies made from formulated plant-based shortenings and LD expanded
uniformly during baking.