I mixed up a red velvet cake this morning for my cousin's birthday. I have used this recipe for years and never had any problems. I noticed that the Crisco was in little lumps in the batter before I put it into the oven. I mixed it again and on a higher speed and it was still lumpy. I threw it away and went to the store for more Crisco.
I made the second cake and same thing....lumpy Crisco. I let the eggs and buttermilk come to room temp before adding them so I have no idea what is happening. I went ahead and baked this batch and it was not up to par because there were spots where the Crisco lumps had been.
Soooo I mixed the third batch. This time I used a different recipe using butter since I didn't want lumps again. Batter was fine so I baked this one. This recipe is so moist that the first layer fell apart when I took it out of the pan. This is ending up being the most expensive red velvet cake I have ever made.
Grrrr I am so disgusted right now. 
I was using the Crisco sticks that are measured to one cup. Is anybody else having problems with the Crisco being lumpy and not creaming? Does anybody have any ideas why this might have happened?
I'm so sorry to hear of your troubles!! I have had some issues with crisco, but not lumps. The sticks has standing moisture in them, not sure what the moisture was. I took them back to the store and they gave me my money back. All the other packages of crisco had the same moisture in them. So they removed them from the shelve.
I read something in the paper recently about Crisco, but it was just a small article without much detail. It said that they were discontinuing the trans-fat free Crisco and reformulating regular Crisco to contain less trans-fats. I'd be curious to know if they already reformulated and if that was causing the lumps.
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