I've made this before and have had no problems, but today I'm considering subbing 50% shortening for 50% of the butter (so it stores longer at room temp). The recipe I'm using calls for 4 sticks of butter or 680g. Do I weigh them out separately? I assumed I would only be using 340g of butter, but the butter I'm using took THREE sticks to get to 340g!!! Now I'm not sure I have 50%-50%! I do have 340g of each, though. Make sense!? I'm not a baker by trade, so I don't know what the science is

Any help would be appreciated! I have 6 more minutes of whipping/cooling down my meringue before adding butter!

Ookay, for the benefit of others: NOT the best idea! You can definitely taste the shortening. Good thing this was just a test run and just for cupcakes for my family (but now I have a lot left that I'm not sure what I will do with!)

I think your measurement for butter is wrong.

4 sticks of butter. I'm assuming each stick is 4 oz. 4 sticks would be 1 lb = 16 oz. = 453.59 grams

Each stick of butter is 113 grams. Which is why you got 3 sticks = 340 grams.

I don't know why the 680 grams. That's the part that's wrong.

Also shortening is a bit lighter than butter. One cup of shortening is about 191 grams.

Now, what I think you had was too much of everything, butter and shortening.

You are right--I was thinking of two different recipes when I was frantically posting before!!! One called for 4 sticks, and the other (the one I was using) called for 680g . Of course, the one that called for 680g of butter had more eggs, sugar, etc. in it. I used the appropriate weight of stuff, it just didn't taste great. We all still ate it! To offset the shortening taste, I made it egg nog flavored and it ended up not being so bad. I wouldn't do it again, though

Phew! OK. I'll never substitute. I don't like shortening.

Just curious, how long do you plan on storing the IMBC at room temperature? People do leave it out for a whole day or so with no problems.

I am doing cupcakes (scratch cake, IMBC on top) and some small 6" round cakes (scratch cake, 4-5" high, filled with the IMBC and covered in MMF) for a charity bake sale I'm hosting with a friend Thursday night. I am packaging them so people can give them as holiday gifts if they choose (or eat them up!!!) I've never really had any packaging, as I don't normally do cupcakes and my cakes are mostly specialized/novelty cakes that I bake-refrigerate-tort/stack-refrigerate-cover with fondant and decorate the morning of and then deliver the day of the party.

I've read plenty over the years here about storage of doctored box mixes (and recently, IMBC, when I started using it) but I was just worried because I'm using scratch cakes for the first time! I will probably:

Tuesday: bake cakes and refrigerate;

Wednesday: bake the cupcakes and refrigerate (a.m.); tort/fill/ganache/fondant all cakes but leave out (p.m.);

Thursday: decorate or finish decorating outsides of cakes and box up; remove cupcakes from fridge midday, top with IMBC/decor and then box up for Thursday 7pm sale

Again, being my first scratch recipes, I'm just not sure if I should put any labels on the boxes suggesting they be refrigerated or eaten within a certain number of days. The sale is Thursday night, so people will probably either eat or give as a gift by Saturday or Sunday. So, for the cupcakes, they're out of the fridge for good as of Thursday midday, and the cakes covered with fondant will be out of the fridge as of Wednesday afternoon.