I recently bought some high ratio shortening at my local cake decorating store in hopes of making Sugarshack's buttercream. The brand is Quickblend, which I have never heard of, and a recipe was included for buttercream that calls for 3/4 cup quickblend to 2 lbs. powdered sugar. Now this is much less shortening that Sugarshack's 1 cup hi ratio: 1 lb sugar. So I'm wondering if all hi ratios are basically the same, or if I should use less this Quickblend than Sugarshack calls for?

I am not really certain about the answer to this. But, like using regular shortening, you can find a varying amount in different recipes, so I think the same thing goes for Hi-ratio. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

You can try asking Sugarshack directly why her recipe has almost equal amounts of sugar and shortening. I'd be curious as to her answer because hi ratio is much more absorbant (maybe that's the reason). By the way, I only make her icing since all my customers love it.

Supposedly you can use less hi ratio than regualr, but when i tried I did not like the results, so i stick with 1:1. you can try it though!