O.K. ...I really should know this since I do make food for other people, but, I have an order for a cake next week and the customer said they wanted bc frosting because there are some vegetarians there and they don't eat lard.? I know nothing about being a vegetarian, but so does this mean they can't eat Crisco or butter or what? I'm really confused? What type of frosting should I make? Thanks for the help.

There are different "degrees" of vegetarianism. I'm NOT one.....but do know that some won't eat any dairy product~ thus butter. I don't remember what Crisco is made from~ if it's not animal in origin it would be ok. Good LUCK!

Crisco says right on the container it is all vegetable shortening. That is all I use in my icings. I just whip it longer for a fluffier icing. It still crusts and smooths with the Viva method. I get raves on my Wilton class icing made with crisco so I am afraid to change.

If they are strict vegans, they won't even do butter (an animal product). But Crisco is fine since it's strictly vegetable (soy) oil.

However, if they are what I call "main stream vegetarians", they will probably eat butter/milk/cheese, etc., so you could do a buttercream icing.

But even mainstream veggies won't do lard, since it's pig fat, which requires slaughter of an animal.

We've been vegetarians for 25 years. We love butter I've learned recently to add just a bit of Crisco to my totally butter-cream icings, simply to stabilize them, because we get to over 100 degrees here in the summer. And there's nothing worse than icing melting all over an otherwise gorgeous cake.