Savor Cookies — The Seed Oil Free Baking Cookbook With No Shortening and No Vegetable Oil

By Savannah Ryan — The Foodie Kitchen

Shortening was invented in the early 20th century as a cheap industrial substitute for butter and lard. It is hydrogenated seed oil — a manufactured fat created by forcing hydrogen through liquid vegetable oil under pressure to make it solid at room temperature. It has no flavour, no nutritional value and produces baked goods with a hollow, waxy texture that dissolves too quickly on the palate. Despite this, shortening and vegetable oil appear in the ingredient lists of the vast majority of baking recipes published today — in cookbooks, on food blogs, in every major baking publication. Savor Cookies by Savannah Ryan does not use shortening, vegetable oil, canola oil or any seed oil of any kind. Every recipe is built on real butter and coconut oil — and the baked goods are significantly better for it.

Find more in the cookie recipes collection and the MAHA recipes collection.

Why Butter Produces Better Baked Goods

Butter contains milk solids that brown during baking and create complex flavour compounds through the Maillard reaction. It contains water that creates steam and slightly lifts texture. It contains fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K2 — nutrients entirely absent from shortening and vegetable oil. The flavour butter contributes to baked goods is not simply a background note — it is the primary flavour carrier in every cookie, muffin, brownie and cake. Shortening produces baked goods that taste like the other ingredients are working alone. Butter produces baked goods where every element is unified and deepened by the fat.

According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, grass-fed butter is one of the most nutrient-dense fats available — providing vitamins that support immune function, bone density and cellular health. Research on PubMed confirms that the saturated fats in butter are chemically stable at baking temperatures, unlike the polyunsaturated fats in vegetable oil which oxidise during baking and produce harmful aldehydes.

What Is Inside Savor Cookies

Savor Cookies covers 30 seed oil free baking recipes across the full spectrum of the baked goods category. Classic chocolate chip cookies in brown butter. Fudgy brownies in butter with no shortening. Almond poppy seed muffins. Peach muffins. Oatmeal coffee cake with a crunchy buttery streusel. Chocolate crinkle cookies rolled in icing sugar. Shortbread made with nothing but butter, flour and sugar. Coconut oil banana bread. Lemon drizzle cake. Every recipe uses either grass-fed butter or virgin coconut oil — and every recipe produces a result that is meaningfully better than the oil-based or shortening-based version it replaces.

The MAHA Baking Standard

The MAHA baking standard is simple — real fat, real ingredients, zero seed oils. Savor Cookies applies that standard across 30 recipes and proves that every baked good category benefits from the swap to ancestral fat. Cookies baked in butter have more flavour. Muffins baked in butter stay moist longer. Brownies baked in butter have a richer, more complex chocolate depth. The baking industry spent decades convincing home bakers that shortening and vegetable oil were neutral, practical choices. They were never neutral. Butter was always better. Savor Cookies proves it 30 times. Get the complete seed oil free baking cookbook — Savor Cookies is available on Amazon now.

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