I tried this recipe just this weekend and I really like the taste and it seems to crust well. I have a few questions though...some prefer a butter based buttercream so I was wondering if I could use the butter flavored crisco or if I should just add butter flavoring. Also, if I were only using it to ice the cake (not decorations) could I sub regular butter? If so, how much? Sorry for all the questions. I am fairly new at this but love trying new recipes, more so for cakes but for bc too. Thanks.

I use a variation of this recipe all the time. Since I like some butter in mine, I use half-butter, half hi-ratio shortening (sometimes, I use 3/4 shortening and 1/4 butter, just depends). Works just perfectly. I've never done an all-butter substitute though.

You could pm Indydebi and ask her opinion. I love her recipe b/c it holds up great in the heat, if I use my recipe that has 1/2 cup butter in it - it doesn't hold up as well.

I've never used butter in this icing (I do use butter in the Hershey Cocoa Can recipe for chocolate icing, though). I would suspect, as mentioned above, that since butter has a lower melting point than shortening, that you'd have to be careful of the environment the cake sits in.

I used butter-flavored crisco only once in my life .... when I made snickerdoodles. They turned out ..... well ...... let's just leave it at "I used it ONCE in my life".

A few months later, I threw the almost-full can away. That has GOT to be the nastiest stuff ever invented .... in my ever so never humble opinion!

Indydeb -
I was wondering the same thing about the butter flavored Crisco. Shirley Corriher in book Bakewise recommends it, but I was still a little leary because every where I have read it talks about the chemical aftertaste.

Can you tell me if you can sub out the dream whip for instant pudding? On another discussion about pistachio paste I was wondering if you could substitute the dream whip for the pudding to get a pistachio flavor? It would also turn the frosting a shade of green too. But I was thinking of it more for a filling...or if you want a nice green colored frosting too.

And what about butter flavoring extract? Have you had any experience with that?

Thanks.

Dream whip is whipped cream and pudding is pudding. Two different things. I'm not sure that a sub would work. However, with ANYTHING, my attitude is "Try it! If it doesn't work, you'll know not to do that next time!"

"I have not failed .... I have just found 10,000 ways that will not work." ----Thomas Edison

Have not tried butter flavoring but have used other flavorings (banana, for example) that have worked fine.

Thanks for the tips on the butter flavored crisco. I will play around with some flavorings.

How would you adapt the recipe to make stiff piping frosting?

Thanks!

I use indydebi's recipe but instead of using the clear vanilla I use the butter flavoring. Sometimes I go a little heavy with it...depends on my taste test.

I tried indydebi's recipe once with the butter flavored crisco, NEVER AGAIN!!!
Tasted funny.
Next time I am going to try it with part butter though.

and the experimenter says

have done 1/2 butter+1/2 veg. shortening and also an all butter sub -- yes softer, but not all that much, and if cut down on the milk will be stiff enough for most air conditioned venues.

have subbed butter flavor, creme bouquet, almond flavors and various combinations of them as well (my current fav is vanilla/butter/creme bouquet with in a 1:2:1 mix -- subject as the whim strikes

have added 16oz of melted chocolate (and then added more milk after it come out hurt your hands stiff for piping)

have even subbed french vanilla coffee creamer for the milk (did that with creme bouquet & butter flavor -- no need for extra vanilla)


so far there is only ONE defect I have found -- it is just SOOOOOO delicious that you can't through the leftovers out and then they end up lingering forever on the HIPS and tummy and tookus and all those other places excess "baggage" loves to accumulate

---

it is a very flexible and forgiving "suggestion" ---- well at least that's my definition of a recipe -- a suggestion to be played with and customized.

Doug, thank you for your tips. They sound delicious. I will have to try them. One question though, what is creme bouquet and where do I find it? Again, thank you.

creme bouquet is a flavoring to use in icing or even in cake.

I get mine at the local privately owned hobby store that has an extensive caking section

do a google search to find online sources.