Margarine Instead Of Butter Or Shortening?
Decorating By ging43 Updated 24 Jan 2006 , 12:22am by Lemondrop
I was going to make a batch of buttercream tonight to decorate my daughters birthday cake either tomorrow night. I have a lot to do tomorrow so I thought the more I can do in advance the better (cake is frozen already). I just noticed I only have a lb of frozen salt free margarine and a pack of yellow buttery flavored crisco. I can't get to the store tonight so I don't know if I should go ahead with the margarine, or wait until I can get some butter. Would margarine affect the final product much?
Thanks
ging
Margarine has salt in it, so you would have to account for that. And sometimes depending on the brand will have a higher water content than butter (and definitely higher that shortening) so you might end up needing more sugar. But otherwise I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work.
Personally, due to the high water content of most margarines, I would opt for the butter flavored Crisco.
I agree, I would use shortening. A week or so ago, I made some bc to practice borders, flowers, etc, and had problems because the bc kept melting in the bag. I've never had this happen before, and I've never used margarine to make bc, so I'm sure this is what it was from (I think it was 12 degrees out that day, so I don't think the weather was to blame!) Also, I could definately tell that I used something different than normal...it didn't taste as good as it normally does!
I agree--you're better off using the crisco rather than margarine.
Margarine works fine but the only brands that I know work are Imperial and Fleichmans (spelling?) They dont have a high water content and are also recommended for baking in place of butter. I prefer Imperial!!!
Personally I would wait until I could go to the store to get butter. I've read several posts on here that talk about the water content in margarine. And there was also a thread that talked about using Butter flavored crisco that was not very favorable either. Just to be on the safe side I would wait and go to the store 
Lazy_Susan 
I have used wal-mart brand margarine in my buttercream before, with no ill effects.
If you use the butter flavor crisco, you may have to add some butter flavoring as well to improve the taste.
I've always made my buttercream with Blue Bonnet margarine (no substitute brands though) along with Crisco and have received numerous compliments on taste. Consistency is easy for me to work with; less milk if I need thick icing for roses and more milk if not.
I have used imperial and it works fine. I personally don't like crisco in my icing that much eventhough its easier to handle.. it leave a sticky feeling in my mouth!
You're right Lisa MS, Blue Bonnet is the other one w/low liquid content and can also be used for baking w/o problems. Other margarines have too much water in them especially if they are soft/whipped. Butter works great but gets soft pretty quickly. I use Crisco with it so it keeps its consistently, especially if you have warm hands when you are holding the decorating bag.
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