Ask any professional pastry chef about their "secret" wedding cake frosting and they might hesitate. It’s a bit of a kitchen scandal. In a world obsessed with organic, farm-to-table everything, the mention of vegetable shortening—specifically Crisco—tends to make purists cringe. But here is the truth. Pure butter buttercream is a nightmare in the July heat. It melts. It slides. It turns your beautiful piping into a puddle before the bride even cuts the cake. That is exactly why buttercream frosting with crisco and butter remains the industry standard for anyone who actually needs their cake to look good for more than twenty minutes.
It’s about chemistry, not just flavor.
You get the rich, velvety mouthfeel of real dairy butter, but the Crisco provides a structural backbone that butter alone simply lacks. Think of it as the "hybrid" approach to baking. You aren't sacrificing taste; you're just adding insurance. Honestly, if you've ever struggled with a grainy American buttercream or a frosting that feels "greasy" rather than creamy, the ratio of fats is almost certainly your culprit.
The Stability Secret Most Pros Won't Admit
Vegetable shortening has a much higher melting point than butter. While butter starts to soften and lose its shape around 90°F (32°C), shortening stays solid well past 100°F. This is a game changer. When you mix them, you're creating a medium that can withstand the warmth of your hands on a piping bag. Have you ever noticed your frosting getting runny halfway through decorating? That's your body heat melting the butter.
By using buttercream frosting with crisco and butter, you create a more stable emulsion. Shortening is 100% fat, whereas butter is roughly 80% fat and 16-18% water. That water in the butter is often what causes grit. It dissolves some of the powdered sugar, which then recrystallizes. Shortening doesn't have that water. It coats the sugar crystals, leading to a texture that many describe as "crusty" on the outside but pillowy on the inside. It's that classic bakery-style finish that holds a sharp edge on a piped rosette.
Crust vs. No-Crust
If you want that thin, delicate "crust" that protects the cake and allows for smooth fondant application, you need the shortening. Pure butter frostings stay soft. That's fine for a casual cupcake at home, but for a tiered cake? It’s risky.
💡 You might also like: Cooper City FL Zip Codes: What Moving Here Is Actually Like
Finding the Perfect Ratio for Your Kitchen
There isn't a single "correct" way to do this, but most professionals gravitate toward a 50/50 split or a 60/40 (butter-heavy) ratio. If you go too heavy on the shortening, you lose that iconic flavor. Go too heavy on the butter, and you’re back to square one with stability issues.
I usually recommend starting with one cup of unsalted butter and one cup of high-ratio shortening or Crisco.
Wait. Use unsalted butter. Always. You want to control the salt content yourself. If you use salted butter, the salt levels vary wildly between brands like Land O'Lakes versus a store brand, and you might end up with a frosting that tastes slightly "off" or metallic when combined with the neutral shortening.
Temperature Matters More Than You Think
Don't use "room temperature" butter if your room is 80 degrees. You want it cool to the touch but pliable. If you can leave a fingerprint in the stick without it squishing completely, you’re in the sweet spot. The Crisco, however, should be kept at a steady room temp. Don't refrigerate it.
Mix the fats together first. Long before you even think about touching that bag of powdered sugar, cream the butter and shortening for at least five minutes. You want it to look like white clouds. This aeration is what removes the "heavy" feeling of the shortening.
📖 Related: Why People That Died on Their Birthday Are More Common Than You Think
Dealing With the "Greasy" Reputation
Shortening gets a bad rap for leaving a film on the roof of the mouth. This usually happens for two reasons: poor mixing or cheap ingredients.
- Under-beating: If you don't whip enough air into the fats, they remain dense.
- Flavoring: Because shortening has zero flavor, you have to be aggressive with your extracts.
Don't just use vanilla. To make buttercream frosting with crisco and butter taste like it came from a high-end patisserie, use a "clear" vanilla if you want a stark white color, but add a tiny drop of almond extract or even butter flavoring. It sounds redundant, but that extra boost of artificial butter flavor actually bridges the gap between the real butter and the shortening, making the whole batch taste richer.
The Color Advantage
Pure butter is yellow. There is no way around it. If you’re trying to make a wedding cake that is "stark white," a 100% butter frosting will always look ivory or slightly cream.
By substituting half of that butter with white Crisco, you significantly lighten the base color. You can then "cancel out" any remaining yellow tones by adding a microscopic dot of violet gel food coloring. It sounds crazy, but purple is the opposite of yellow on the color wheel. A tiny bit turns that off-white into a brilliant, bright white. You can't achieve that as easily with all-butter recipes because the yellow saturation is just too high.
Common Pitfalls and How to Fix Them
Sometimes things go wrong. Your frosting looks curdled, or it's full of air bubbles.
👉 See also: Marie Kondo The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: What Most People Get Wrong
If it looks curdled, your butter was likely too cold. The fats aren't emulsifying. You can fix this by taking a small bowl of the frosting, microwaving it for five seconds until it's melted, and then streaming it back into the main mixer while it’s running. This gently raises the temperature of the whole batch.
If you have too many air bubbles, you've probably been whipping it on high speed for too long. Switch to the paddle attachment and turn your mixer to the lowest setting for about 10 minutes. This "massages" the air out and gives you that smooth-as-glass finish that looks so good on Instagram.
Real-World Evidence: The Humidity Test
In 2011, several baking forums, including the popular CakeCentral, documented side-by-side "melt tests" in high-humidity environments like Florida and Louisiana. The results were lopsided. All-butter frostings began to weep and sag within 45 minutes at 85°F. The versions utilizing a shortening-butter blend held their structural integrity for over four hours. This is why even "luxury" bakers often use a hybrid—it's simply more reliable for the client.
Taking Action: Your Next Steps
Stop fearing the Crisco. If you have a big event coming up, or if you're tired of your decorations wilting, it is time to try the hybrid method.
- Audit your butter: Grab high-quality, European-style butter if possible (like Kerrygold), as it has less water content, which improves the texture even further.
- Scale your sugar: For every 1 cup of fat (combined butter/shortening), you generally need 4 cups (about 1lb) of sifted powdered sugar.
- Sift, always: Never skip sifting. Shortening is great, but it can't hide sugar lumps.
- Heavy Cream over Milk: When thinning out your frosting, use heavy cream. The higher fat content keeps the emulsion stable compared to the water content in skim or 2% milk.
Start by replacing just 25% of your butter with shortening in your next batch. See how it pipes. Notice the stability. You'll likely find that the slight trade-off in "purity" is more than worth the peace of mind when you're transportng a cake across town in the heat.
The most important thing is the "cream" stage. Don't rush the initial whipping of the fats. Set a timer for six minutes. Let the mixer do the heavy lifting, and you'll end up with a buttercream frosting with crisco and butter that defies expectations and stays exactly where you pipe it.