The objective of the paper was to determine the usefulness of mechanical properties, determined using an instrumental method, of shortcrust cookies for the purpose of estimating their hardness. Shortcrust cookies were made using five solid shortenings and butter. They differed in the content of solid phase at a temperature of making dough, ie. of 25 ºC (from 1.36 to 48.57 %) and in the melting temperature (21 – 38.6 ºC). In the experiment, a shear test was applied and on its basis, the hardness of products was determined. The cookies were also sensorily evaluated. The hardness of the shortcrust cookies made ranged from 9 to 13 N. It was proved that the instrumentally measured mechanical properties of shortcrust cookies could be an indicator of their hardness. No statistically significant dependencies between the contents of solid phase in the shortenings examined (at a temperature of making dough) were found.