Hello everynone
I live in Spain and I can't find vegetable shortening anywhere here. I wanted to make buttercream and many other recipes, do you know of any other product I could use with the same results? butter, margarine, lard? Specially for buttercream, have you ever made it enterily with butter or margarine?
Thank you in advance
You can definitely make your buttercream with all butter. But it will probably be softer and it may not hold up all that well in warm weather. It will melt at a lower temperature than a recipe using vegetable shortening would.
I've heard about people using margarine but I never have so I'm not sure about that.
I took it upon myself to do a little research on shortening...and found this online. Does this make any sense to anyone who don't live in the US?
"In England, shortening is sold in 500g boxes in the refrigerated section of the supermarket -- not on the dry goods shelf in 3-lb. tubs like in the US. And the British dont know it as shortening but instead by a variety of names and brand names including White sunflower vegetable fat; White Flora; and Trex, amongst others."
Thank you all. I will try to do it using all butter. That's just what I thought, that it would be softer than using shortening, and it will be even worse if I use margarine.
It's very common here to use pork or pig shortening (I don't know if that is the way to call it) in many recipes, like cookies or truffles, but I don't like it because it stinks 
I have used sunflower vegetable fat or flora, that's simply margarine, as far as I know. So, vegetable shortening is not refrigerated?
I will keep on researching too, but I will definitely try to do it with butter until I find something better.
I have one big doubt
I tried to make some buttercream once (half butter/ half margarine) but I did not continue adding subar to get the right consitency because it was already soooooo sweet that it was almost unswallowable.
Do you thing that sugar in Spain culd be different from sugar in USA? I know it sounds ridiculous and you may think I'm stupid (I may be) but I thought that maybe the powder sugar you buy is less sweet that the powder sugar I make at home. Is the final flavour of buttercream that sweet?
Thanks again girls
I don't know if it's different sugar or not. I never really thought of it. I know that buttercream is extremely sweet. It is too sweet for me. I don't like it very much, but use it because everyone else seems to. I prefer my cake plain. MMMMM
Maybe you should experiment a little with Italian Meringue Buttercream and a few other recipes online. The IMBC does not use shortening-just butter and is made by cooking the white sugar (not icing or powedered sugar) and water, then mixing slowly into stiff egg whites. It is less sweet than regular buttercream and some people here prefer it.
Hi, Im from Australia and we dont have Crisco either. I make buttercream dream and use all butter instead of the Crisco. I use half salted butter and half unsalted butter to cut the sweetness of the buttercream. Apparently it doesnt crust very well though but it tastes really good!
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