I want to try out some of the recipes but some have an ingredient called
crisco? what is this?. I live in New Zealand and we don't have this. What is a similar ingredient?
Also how do you get white buttercream? silly question I know but one that I'm stuck on, as our butter down here is very yellow. I have read some forums and they say white butter, but once again we don't have that., unless
I try a "lite margarine" maybe, because they are very pale. Any suggestions? 
Maybe you would know it as shortening? I don't know maybe there isn't an equivalent there..? But that's the only other name for it that I can think of. I know of a few other brands...Snowdrift is one other shortening. Also these are used for frying things. Pure white buttercream is obtained by using shortening in the place of butter. ( Crisco is just a brand name) I hope this helps. 
I want to add....I dont use shortening to replace butter I use shortening and real butter, and my frosting is ALWAYS white now....it didnt used to be when I used margarine, margarine made it a pale yellowish color or perhaps like ivoryish......now with REAL BUTTER mine is white as white can be...
I use Wilton's recipe believe it or not 
....I hope it works for you 
....I was so impressed to see the difference in the two side by side....I made a recipe with margarine, and a recipe with butter... wow 
what a difference...and if its not white enough for you then you can use wiltons white white!...or I am sure Americolors brand too... I too like the taste of the butter vs the shortening or the margarine. 
Let me know if it works for you... I will keep my fingers crossed .... you can smash me on the head if it doesnt work 
I am sure it will, my neighbor made it also and she said it was definately white. 
and oh by the way...
It doesnt look like it will be white, but it does end up white!
Just wanted to add, don't use the lite margarine. It has too high a moisture content and will make your buttercream really mushy.
The amount of colouring added to butter varies a great deal from country to country as do the brands available. I am told that Land'o Lakes has very little colour in the U.S.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes
thats correct squirrely....it is a very very pale yellow, almost not yellow at all....and when put on toast it disappears, and blending it its white....
I have and have used the Wilton White Coloring... it works great ... I tinted some icing too dark before and needed it to be a bit lighter. I put some of the whitener in it and it lightened it right up ... it will thin your icing some so if you're needing a thicker icing, you may need to add a bit more powder sugar to thicken it up 
In Canada our butter has a fair amount of yellow added to it. Personally I don't find a big difference with adding the Wilton Whitener, but then I use brown vanilla in my icing because I cannot stand the taste of the artificial clear vanillas, doesn't matter which brand, haha! So if you use brown pure vanilla, you may as well save your money!
One caution though, when you add the whitener to the base and then use this base to blend other colours, sometimes it has an ill effect on other colours you may be trying to add.
You don't need your icing to be white white to get it to colour properly. A few folks seem to be under that mistaken impression. I have used butter and brown vanilla in my icing for almost 30 years and have never had a problem getting any other colour that true white white. So if you are going to use it, just use it for the parts where you need the white white.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes
In Canada our butter has a fair amount of yellow added to it. Personally I don't find a big difference with adding the Wilton Whitener, but then I use brown vanilla in my icing because I cannot stand the taste of the artificial clear vanillas, doesn't matter which brand, haha! So if you use brown pure vanilla, you may as well save your money!
One caution though, when you add the whitener to the base and then use this base to blend other colours, sometimes it has an ill effect on other colours you may be trying to add.
You don't need your icing to be white white to get it to colour properly. A few folks seem to be under that mistaken impression. I have used butter and brown vanilla in my icing for almost 30 years and have never had a problem getting any other colour that true white white. So if you are going to use it, just use it for the parts where you need the white white.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes
i didnt know this i guess its true you learn something new everyday
Heehee, funny how our two countries are side-by-side and so much is different and yet so much is the same.
Geesh, there is even a difference between products from one province to another here.
It is interesting with the whitener product because it seems to effect some colours over others and varies with what kind of icing you make too.
Yes, the longer I live the more I learn everyday to the point where I wonder sometimes if I ever knew anything, haha!
Hugs Squirrelly
Some one should mention to roseanne to make sure she picks up all vegetable shortening. I made the mistak of picking up a meats anf vegetable and it was sooooooooo groosssssssss. It was a simple mistake to make dont want her to make the same mistak i did its awful
I use both the Wilton half butter half shortening and Dawns recipe for butter cream. If I am going for really white icing like the stripes on my American flag cake I will set some aside and use the Wilton White White in it. I also have used the White coloring to make my yellow cake lighter. I almost always use a scratch yellow cake recipe I found a few years ago, as I am allergic to soy. Adding the White coloring to the cake mix I ended up with slightly off white color that worked well for the overall appearance of the cake.
And like susanmm23 said make sure it is all vegetable shorting. I remember when I was overseas in the Coast Guard on a Deployment we got supplies on a stop in Morocco and the shortening was not all vegetable the cake itself wasnt to bad flavor wise but the icing was horrible tasting.
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