People - good news! I went today to a store that caters to our Mexican population - all of the products are from Latin America. Anyway - NORMAL CRISCO! Can't read all of the label, but I can read enough to know that trans fat did not equal 0! They also had a different brand that I was not familiar with and it was also a trans fat supporter. Once my Crisco is gone, I'm going back for the other.

Fabulous Lana, thank you. We have a Mexican foods store here even though it's a small town

Has anyone found a solution that includes the new recipe of Crisco? I know I can find store brands for now...but I really think they'll all go to this change in the near future. What one company does, they all seem to do.

I am really scared to try no crisco recipes for buttercream since I live in a humid climate.

I watched Alton Brown the other night make buttercream, but it involves cooking and egg whites...I know it sounds spoiled, but I just hate to make that leap

Anyone had any luck?

Today I made chocolate chip cookies and used the new
Crisco. No problems with those. I had about a cup of the old Crisco and I compared them. Color and texture are certainly different.

Diane

Well, after much thought and I decided to take the leap to hi ratio. I know it sounds ridiculous because it shouldn't be that big of a deal but I do not like to change the ingredients in my recipes...certainly when they work perfect. I like being able to zip over to walmart and get what I need...hi ratio has to be ordered & it costs quite a bit more!

I'm sure after I get this crisco figured out our government will decide to ban sugar because it's "unhealthy" and then they'll go for the vanilla extract and then sooner or later we will have to submit monthly family dinner menus to the governor for approval or they'll form the IFAS (internal food auditing service) to keep tabs on America's shopping lists. This is going far beyond ridiculous when our government tells us what we can and can not eat.

Amen to that SweetConfectionsChef!

Ok, so over the past several days I have read all the posts on this topic. Something that has not yet been addressed is cleaning up the bowls and utensils after making frosting using the new Crisco. I used to run very hot water and rinse off all my utensils and bowls. Then I would wash them either by hand or in my dishwasher. I did the same thing today and you could definitely tell the difference. The icing just wouldn't dissolve off my bowl and measuring cups and I only used HOT water! It was very weird and appeared to be very greasy. My family has noticed a difference with the frosting I made - said it tasted grainy. I am very disappointed with Crisco and will be shopping for the old stuff tomorrow. I have a separate refrigerator. Don't you think I could buy a bunch and refrigerate it?

I am just wondering if we all start usng high ratio shortening, is it going to be changing in the future too?

I think I'm actually going to try one of the cooked buttercream recipes that uses butter only.

I just can't get past the idea that even if I go out and buy extra of the "old recipe" crisco, I will eventually run out and be back in the same position.

Not to mention having a mini-meltdown about using 2 year old crisco (yuk!!)

I think the answer for me is a new recipe that can be used to decorate and does not use crisco at all. Does anyone know what recipes are used in culinary schools?

Man....i'm really bummed

Maybe we should be writing to Crisco. Maybe they would do a decorator shortening for all of the cake makers out there. I think once they realize it is a problem they will also realize how it might cut into their profits. Surely they make a lot of money from people who buy it for icing. I wonder if good old fashioned Lard would help it get back to normal?..hmmm.

I found 5 cans of the good crisco today. That gives me a total of 6 cans and a 1 pound box. I don't know how many more I will let myself buy if I even find them...I'm with you gibbler about using 2 year old Crisco. I know that it says you can keep it for 2 years, but mine has NEVER lasted that long on the shelf! Cakepro submitted an all shortening recipe that is supposed to work well with the new crisco. Has anyone tried it yet?? Does it taste as good as 1/2 butter 1/2 crisco? I am having a very hard time giving up my favorite recipe!

I was just at a Fred Meyer Grocery store here in Idaho. I believe they are owned by Kroger. The Fred Meyer brand of shortening has 2g Trans Fat in it. Albertons store brand also has trans fat and so does walmart store band. I wrote a long e-mail to Crisco. I do believe it is gong to hurt their sales of Crisco. I know I use to make non crusting a long time ago. I may just do that again. What I never liked about crusting icing was that the next day there was always a little subtle cracking once it set no matter what recipe I used.

so that's what it is eh? I noticed something different with the consistency of my icing...it seemed kind of sticky and mucky instead of creamy. Adding a bit of water to it made it creamy but other than that that's about it. Seems to be okay other than the consistency...

Sorry, due to the lateness of the hour I was forced to stop reading at page 19.

Here's an article that has info on the history of Crisco and J.M. Smucker Co.'s new Crisco:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

The old Crisco formulation was soybean with cottonseed oil (reading from label).

While the "trans free" is palm oil cut with soybean and sunflower oils (from above article).

HTH

Has anyone had any problems with the new stuff actually sliding off the cake?! It happened to three of the six cakes I did this Sat. one of which was a wedding cake!! The corner of the cake basicly all but slide totally off the corner of the bottom tier. I felt so bad and it looked so bad I gave them a discount. The same thing happened to the birthday smash cake and anniversary cake except it just bubbled up and cracked down the middle of the bubble. Any other stories like mine?

I thought the sliding icing was just me...or Georgia humidity. When I started reading this thread I felt so much better to know I wasn't alone. The purse cake I made (in my pictures) was one of the worst. I kept it in the refrigerator after decorating. The icing on the back side of the cake slid so badly I couldn't put all the fondant pieces on it.

I guess I may have to go to fondant cakes, but I really prefer buttercream. I have all the ingredients to try some different buttercream recipes...but no time. I also want WHITE buttercream, which I think will be difficult with all butter recipes whether cooked or not.

Please everyone e-mail Crisco and tell them what happened with your icing sliding off the cakes. Especially when a wedding cake has real problems that should amke an impression with them that they are going to lose business big time when people stop buying it.

I had issues with sliding too! I ended up scraping it all off and making a new batch of icing. I mixed it very very slowly and added very little liquid to it. This made it harder to spread on the cake and it took me a long time to get the cake to look acceptable.

Wow, this has been a great thread!! I too, could not understand what I was doing wrong and why I was having problems with my crisco. It was the same blue container, but I hadn't realized the change. I ran back to the store today pulled out all of the crisco and way in the back found 2 of the "old crsico", the funny part is if the store knew what I was doing, they probably would have been happy to know I was taking their old product. Wish I had found more! Thanks for the crisco website, I also filled out the form about my problems with the new crisco. Hope that makes a difference with so many of us taking the time to let crisco know we are unhappy with the new product.

Yikes! It happened again... my buttercream dream is turned into a buttercream nightmare. IT took me almost an hour longer of struggling yesterday than it should have.

yep, my cake looked awful today when I dropped it off I could not get it smooth and the the harder I tried the worse it got. My cake design changed not for the better but because I had to at least try to cover up all of the icing mistakes.