Cereal Chem 58:408 - 412.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
A Mechanism by Which Shortening and Certain Surfactants Improve Loaf Volume in Bread.

R. C. Junge and R. C. Hoseney. Copyright 1981 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Addition of shortening to the bread-making formula, among other things, increases loaf volume and delays the loss of carbon dioxide from short-time doughs during baking. With a conventionally fermented dough, however, carbon dioxide was released at the same rate from doughs with and without shortening. When a modified baking system with electric resistance heating was used to study the effects of shortening, doughs did not become permeable to carbon dioxide during baking. The dough with shortening and surfactants that replace shortening remained expandable longer and therefore produced a higher volume than dough with no shortening. The long-held belief that shortening somehow improves the gas-retaining properties of dough appears to be erroneous.