I know alot of people have used it and some use it all the time instead of Crisco but I think it has an odd taste. I used it for my Spiderman cake and I thought it had a very strange taste. I don't know if it is because I am used to regular shortening or maybe I had a bad batch, I don't know. I use the Wilton 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening recipe and even with the 1/2 butter it tasted wierd. I guess if I were you I would get a small amount and just try it out to see if you like it.
HTH,
HeatherMari
I have "Professional Baking" by Wayne Gisslen.
In summary:
Regular shortenings have a fairly tough and waxy texture, and small particles of the fat tend to hold their shape in a dough or batter. They come is varying degrees of hardness.
Emulsified (hi-ratio) shortenings are soft and spread easily throughout a batter and quickly coat the particles of sugar and flour. Because they contain added emulsifying agents, they can hold a larger quantity of liquid and sugar than regular shortening.
Thus, they give a smoother and finer texture to cakes and make them more moist.
Emulsified shortening is often used when the weight of sugar in a cake batter is greater than the weight of flour.
I was a little disappointed in that there was only one hi-ratio cake recipe in the book, and that was for pound cake.
HTH
Jan,
I have that book also...the recipe I was wondering about came from it. It's the white cake recipe. It only called from emulsified shortening - no butter.
I tried it today, and it did bake up with an incredibly fine and tender crumb - but not much in the way of a butter flavor, mostly vanilla. I think I'll try it again substituting a small amount of butter flavoring for the vanilla....or mayby creme bouquet?
Thanks!
Mmmm, I'll have to check that out; my book is upstairs and I'm not.
Looked under hi-ratio, and it only listed the pound cake.
So happy, that there's another recipe for hi-ratio.
For flavoring, I like a combination of butter, vanilla and creme bouquet. I've never used creme bouquet all by itself.
However, if you do go with straight creme bouquet, please post your results. I'd be very interested!
Might try making the pound cake recipe after Thanksgiving. I really like pound cake and a fine and tender crumb sounds so appealing 
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