Would like to know if anyone can give me some advice. There are so many different brands of all purpose flour, King Arthur, Gold Medal, Store Brand. Is there really a difference? There is such a big difference in price.
Some questions with shortening. I use Walmart brand for my buttercream, but am I better with Crisco brand.
Thanks. 
Yes and the better the ingredient, the better the final product.
Cheap flours have irregular grains and also have inconsistent gluten percentages. They are the cast-offs of the name brands.
Of the name brands, they are all good. Some have different properties. You can find your favorites.
On shortening, same thing. You can research each product on the web and find what has been cheapened. All have a story and all will change a product.
King Arthur unbleached all purpose flour is really good for baking bread. It will bake fine fruitcakes and cream-cheese poundcakes. NOT regular layer cakes, unless there is buttermilk or lemon juice in the recipe.
Pillsbury and Gold Medal have a lower protein content than KAF so they are OK for cakes. Not so good for yeast bread, but better for general baking like muffins, biscuits, coffeecakes.
In Canada the Selection house brand (Metro chain) is very similar to KAF and bakes excellent bread therefore not so good cake. Yellow No Name has proven to be very variable--sometimes the top of a 5kg bag is hard bread flour and the bottom is cake flour.
I use to use the walmart brand than tried crisco and thought they were fine than i came on here and read lots of post about high ratio shortening l looked up the CK brand and i am able to buy it at my cake store, you can buy it online in 3 pound tubs well worth the money it makes my Bc smooth as silk. Just do a google search for high ratio Ck shortening
I use to use the walmart brand than tried crisco and thought they were fine than i came on here and read lots of post about high ratio shortening l looked up the CK brand and i am able to buy it at my cake store, you can buy it online in 3 pound tubs well worth the money it makes my Bc smooth as silk. Just do a google search for high ratio Ck shortening
That's a different question. High ratio shortening is NOT THE SAME STUFF as crisco/vegetable shortening. High-ratio has water mixed in. It makes your buttercream smooth as silk because of thate xtra water. You can get the same result if you add water (2 tablespoons per cup of shortening) to the shortening-plus-sugar mix and keep beating.
The present difference between Crisco brand and generic brands is that Crisco is trans-fat-free but the off-label shortening has trans fat that makes it harden up well when chilled. This happens to make a HUGE difference when you are making frozen buttercream transfers.
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