Just checked my package of Crisco and it contains soybean and palm oils.

I very rarely use shortening, but recently I bought some Spectrum organic shortening to use in candy making (buckeyes). I was very disappointed with it as I could detect an aftertaste in the chocolate from the shortening. So I bought a can of Crisco to use in the next batch. I only use a few tablespoons, so I'm not going to fret about it. It would be different if I were frying stuff in vats of crisco! Good luck....

Oh well then I guess we shouldn't eat anything other than organic beef as left over cotton is used in cattle feed

That said what you may be noticing in your pie crusts is the result of the different formulation of Crisco you are using. It's the trans-fat free version. Look for the old formulation for the same results you are used to.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wiki link to cottonseed oil

It's getting harder to know what's in the food we buy. I was going to suggest using lard instead of Crisco but who knows where that animal comes from or what it has been fed also. But if you know where the pig comes from you could render your own lard. Not even baby food seems to be safe now. There's no country of origin for ingredients used in food products.

I used to use Crisco for pie crusts, and they were flaky. I use butter now, and the texture isn't quite as good. I went to use my Crisco about 6 months ago and it had developed an awful (rancid?) smell. I just threw out and never replaced it. I decided that it wasn't healthy, was too messy, and the tub took up too much room in my pantry.

Gosh, we used it in cookies and crusts for years and years and years. I am concerned about what I eat and try to avoid additives and HFCS and the like, but I wonder how much harm will come to us if we use a little shortening for a batch of cookies or a pie that we eat only at the holidays.

DW was so disappointed with the new Crisco that she went back to using lard in her pie crusts.

Thank you all for your responses. I guess I will use it up, or try to, by just adjusting the water added when making pie crust. After it is gone, I will likely try something else, in a smaller size.

Wouldn't it be nice if they had the trans fat free and also kept and made the 'Classic' Crisco?

Sue

I bought a small can of Crisco before Thanksgiving and noticed that it's now trans-fat free. I use the pie crust recipe in my Cuisinart book, which takes 8 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of Crisco. They came out better than usual. For years, I'd been having trouble with the fluted edges "slumping" in or out during baking, but I rolled out the crusts and chilled them and they came out perfectly this time. I notice, too, that if I use all butter, the pie crists isn't as flaky.

Tracey - I usually make about 15 dozen (or more!) Buckeyes at Christmas-time and give them as gifts. I use semisweet chocolate chips for dipping and don't add any shortening to it. I know you're supposed to, and the added shortening seems to make the chocolate harder and shinier, but I think the plain morsels work fine.

Velodoug has the right idea - use lard instead of Crisco. Hydrogenated oil is worse than animal fat. The Cuban market that I go to gives lard away for free, as they consider it a by-product.

Lars

I found an online source for leaf lard...it's from pastured hogs and very neutral tasting. Before this I had another organic lard, but it had a piggy taste that did not do well in pastries, although it didn't bother me in tortillas and biscuits. Anyway, when I got this leaf lard, I took a tiny bit of each kind of lard and did a side-by-side taste test, and the leaf lard was incredibly mild, almost as mild as the older shortenings, and so much healthier, being a natural fat.

I couldn't get the leaf lard for the longest time. My co-op butcher shop couldn't get it, the mercados just had regular lard, and the farm from whom I had gotten my organic lard didn't even know what it was.

I am posting the link...I believe I can do this because I am not financially affiliated with this site, just a very happy customer (their stewing hens are great, too!).

Joanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Pride Farm leaf lard

I just made 2 pies on 6/18/11 - most difficult pie crust I have ever made and have been making pies for 40 years. I only used Crisco for pies and had thrown out my old can of Crisco last year. I didn't think of looking at the label when buying a new can. I made one batch of double crust, rolled it out and then decided to throw it out as it was dry and cracked as I rolled it out. I made two more batches (added more Crisco and then more cold water.) After I rolled out the 3rd one (all seemed disasterous) I decided to look at the can realizing that companies are trying to eliminate trans fats. Sure enough, it said 0 trans fats per serving. I then looked at the ingredients and saw soybean oil and palms oils. Not sure what I'll use the next time I make pies.

I definitely think it has changed. I made my chocolate chip cookies yesterday and it was the third time they have failed. I have used the same recipe for more than 20 years. I couldn't understand why they took so long to bake and tasted like pie dough. Flaky. Not what I want for cookies. This morning I got up and checked my oven temperature to make sure it was cooking correctly. It was spot on. I am so sad to see this. I know soy is not good for us, so I guess I will shift to butter. I will also check on the leaf lard and see if I can get it. Sorry Crisco, bye bye.

I noticed the difference in Crisco right away. Had dried out pie crust that didn't roll as it use to. I have been baking pies and other baked goods for over 50 yrs and this is terrible the change they have made..... I definitely will be looking for alternatives for Crisco.

Try using coconut oil instead of Crisco, or GF Earth Balance, or GF soy free Smart Balance, or Spectrum.

I've baked exclusively with Crisco for over 40 years. The new formula is horrible. The pie crust will not stay together and is extremely dry. When I called the company, the representative suggested that I store the canned Crisco in the frig and then put the rolled crust in the frig before rolling it out. The results were unsatisfactory. Bring back the old Crisco. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" Good old fashion lard is looking mighty good at the moment.

I have been using Crisco for years, and always had good pie crusts. The new formula is more oily, thinner, and comes apart when I roll it out, and the taste just isn't the same. I could always count on perfect pie crust before, but this new Crisco just doesn't make good pie crust. I wish they would bring back the original.!

>Bring back the old Crisco<

Never eat anything hydrogenated.

Ever.

For eight years this question has lived. Put it to rest. Crisco is not the 1990's Crisco. We now know it is not real food.

Nancyofnc, does the coconut oil leave a coconut flavor? I really dislike the smell and taste of coconut. Even as a teen when everyone was using coconut scented suntan oil, I hated it. I do have some coconut oil, as DH wanted me to start cooking with it. I can smell and taste it in my scrambled eggs. Yuck. If it wouldn't make the pie crust taste and smell like it, I would try it.

There is no coconut smell nor taste in coconut oil. I use it as a moisturizer ( on my skin) and a cleanser....as well as in pie crusts etc.

"refined" coconut oil doesn't have a taste or scent.

Um... It does have a taste, but it's not a coconut taste. I'm sensitive, however, and others might not notice it.

Refined doesn't have a noticeable coconut taste or smell. But extra virgin does. So you have to be careful about which kind you purchase. And, if you're sensitive like plllog, neither one would appeal to you. (I understand nose sensitivities. I'm one of the few people that gags when cooking quinoa. There's no nutty smell for me -- just sheer horror.)

Thanks, I will have to look and see which one I purchased.

I

ve made lemon criss-cross cookies for 15 years, Mixed up double batch yesterday & looked like pie crust before you add water, no way I was going to be able to make balls & flatten with a fork. So I read the can of Crisco & says if you are using in place of l C butter you need to 1 C Crisco plus 2 Tbs water, so that's what I did plus adding another Tbs Crisco& turned out fine. You can't use butter in the recipe or won't have that great lemon taste. My pie crust recipe is in the very old Betty Crocker picture cookbook, wedding gift 1963, so I continue using it adding extra water until it holds together nicely.

I was thinking about the water when I saw "looked like pie crust" on the preview. :) I used to use Smart Balance no transfat shortening, but I think Crisco bought it because when they came out with zero transfat the Smart Balance disappeared from the market, and what's in the Crisco can seems exactly the same. I use it mostly for non-dairy cakes. They come out light and lovely, and better than butter cakes, IMO, and without any of that weird flavor that the palm oil shortening has. I've only used it half and half with butter in pie dough, however, and prefer all (frozen) butter.

Having trouble with the "looks crumbly" issue. My recipe for pie crust, ingrained in my brain from my mother in about 1950...1 cup scooped flour, 13 cup crisco, measured by the water displacement method, 1/2 tsp salt and enough water to make it hold together....add a little at a time and toss with a fork until it comes together.
I never measure water in a pie crust...I just add enough. If it's crumbly, you need to add more.

I made 3 pie crusts today, came out flakey & delicious,3 c. flour 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 c plus 3 tbls Crisco mix until it has fine crumb to it(no pieces of shortening & looks even) add 1/4 c plus 1/8 cup water & started mixing with a fork & added an extra 2 tbls or slightly more of water mixed until it seemed to hold together & I could take my clean hands & form a ball(once you get your hands forming balls don't knead it, just push it into a ball & if parts don't fall off it's ready to roll out(rolling around in your hands will make it tough) I tape waxed paper to counter & sprinkle very lightly with flour flatten the ball to about 1 1/2 in with my hand & then turn over(no more flour) & take about 12 in square of waxed paper & place over center of dough & roll out. I use a marble rolling pin & get it just how I want it & remove the wax paper from top carefully & then release the tapes(masking tape comes up well) & flip over unto my pie plate. Got 2 9 in pumpkin & a smaller apple as I wanted to use up all the little apples I had left off my tree. Had little crust left over & used sugar & cinnamon on it like mom used to do!

Thanks everyone ! I use butter flavor Crisco in my chocolate chip cookies .... NOT THE SAME !

Did you read the side of can, on regular Crisco you have to add more water(or water even if doesn't call for it) or the cookie dough is too crumbly. So I imagine they changed the formula on the butter flavored Crisco too. Read it & see if it doesn't tell you to add water!

So is there a final general decision on what can be successfully used in place of Crisco? Or should each dish be treated separately?

I have been baking perfect pies for 55 years, solved the Crisco problem! I stopped baking pies! What is the sense in going to all of that trouble in order to end up with something that tastes nothing like what you and your children remember? I had no problem rolling out the dough, it was the texture after baked and the flavor. When you are use to a flaky, tender crust with a delicious taste like your grandmother's? This new Crisco can't even begin to compare. I don't think eating a piece of pie 9 or 10 times a year is going to hurt anyone. I grew up doing it and at 72, I am perfectly healthy, take no medications and went to a doctor 10 years ago for pneumonia, before that childbirth.

Thankfully I grew up using lard. Grandma said "if it wasn't a food 50 years ago, it's not a food today", LOL, and wouldn't buy it. Mother bought something called "Spry"(I think ??) and Grandma about had a fit, said she couldn't make a decent crust with "that awful stuff". (grin) I've used shortening in pie crusts, but as others have said about lard or butter, it's not what I expected. Everyone wants what they are used to, I suppose, although sometimes we just have to adjust and get on with it. I'll always be ticked about the 4 pound bags of sugar, though. :-)

So today lard is bleached or preservative laden or something, and it's also not the same. I have the luxury of rendering my own lard, which I tend put into the freezer in pint jars until I use it. When my "stash" gets low, I use half butter and half lard, I've seldome used Crisco in pie crust, so I don't miss it.

As for other baked goods, I make Grandma's Molasses Cookies and I use half butter and half shortening and they come out just as I expected. I do tend to bake by feel and by appearance, instead of sticking only with measurement, so maybe that makes a difference.

They are never going to change Crisco back to the old formula, obviously, since this thread started in 2008. So, I guess we can continue to complain, but it won't do any good. Won't stop me from complaining, of course, but I do recognize it does no good and I'd be better off to just "get over it".

I also do not stick with a single recipe for pastry, it depends on what I'm baking. If it's "just pie" I'll use Grandma's old pastry recipe or, more likely, the Nathan's Never Fail Pastry, it rolls like a dream if I don't have time to refrigerate. I've used pate sucre, I've made gluten free crusts, I've made nut based crusts. I tried the one with vodka from Cook's Illustrated and found it difficult to work with. I'm not stuck on one single recipe or ingredient, because it's the filling that matters to me, while my Mother eats all the crust she can.

Annie

The old Crisco was the definition of transfats. There are things I use the new Crisco for, when I want parve (neither meat nor milk). There are other things I use the 100 Calorie per ounce parve baking sticks (margarine) for. They're all vegetable oil, so aren't really "new" foods. My forebears would have just used liquid oil and made heavy pastry, so there's an improvement there. :) For pie, I use butter. I've tried different kinds of oil based shortening and don't like the flavor. I'd make a tart instead if I needed it to be parve. :)

Annie, have you tried Stella's crust on Serious Eats? I kind of fell in love with it last Summer. There is chilling involved, but it makes a generous crust, enough for a 10" deep dish, plus trimmings. And it's FUN. It's sort of part pie method, part rough puff. I was thinking the younger grandkids would have a ton of fun squishing the butter. My college girl did.

I finally tried 1 butter crust, Lake to Lake Butter had recipe online. It was attractive but not as flaky as Crisco, no buttery taste which daughter & I expected even leftover cinnamon sugar pieces weren't delicious just isn't what we like, told SIL & she said the same thing about butter so we are back with Crisco adding a little extra about 1 tbs & then adding little extra water until it holds together well. Wish they would stop messing with our baking products, I got brown sugar at Sam's Club & made cookies, something was way off, remembered that mom told me never to get any except C&H as it is real brown sugar, so looked at Sam's Member's Mark & it is sugar with molasses. I was so disgusted. Also flour was 12 lb & means fill my canister twice & still have 2 lb left to sit around. We shouldn't have to read ingredients every time we shop, bad enough checking for things I'm allergic to.

All brown sugar is sugar with molasses. C&H is cane sugar. Domino is also. Check for the word "cane". Beet sugar is no good for baking and might be what the Sam's sugar was.

Raw sugar has a kind of ecru color, and is nice for some things--I use it in fig pie filling because the original recipe said to and I think it tastes better with the figs than white sugar--but it's not what we think of as brown sugar, and doesn't have the molasses flavor that is iconic with brown sugar.

Edited. I originally put "Diamond" when it should have been "Domino".

As plllog says, all brown sugar is just sugar with added molasses. Dark brown has moe molasses. The difference is that some is cane sugar and some is beet sugar.

Now, being from Michigan, home of Big Chief/Pioneer sugar, I've always baked with it and my baked goods came out fine. However, I had some struggles with candy like fudge until I just caved in and bought cane sugar, here it's Domino. Grandma always told me that I had to use cane sugar for fudge and I guess she was right.

Sunny, those different sizes of containers make me crazy. 10 pounds of potatoes have now become 8 pounds. 5 pounds of sugar is 4 pounds. A pound box of pasta is now 12 ounces, or even 10 ounces. Recipes that call for a specific amount that used to be available in a package now have to be adjusted. I think it's just a way for them to charge the same amount while putting less in the package, like we won't notice. As for those pie crusts, taste is not objective, it's subjective. People like what they like. I don't care for shortening/Crisco crusts, but I like lard. Butter is OK, but I still like lard best, although I don't care for the commercially available stuff. So, if I get to a point where I can't render my own, I'll have to adjust to something else. (sigh) AnnT made only all-butter crusts, that's what she liked. None of them are wrong, it's just the differences in taste and tradition that make them what they are and they are all miles better than that frozen Pet Ritz stuff my mother used to buy, I don't know how something could be fragile yet tough, and taste greasy and fake but still look like a pie crust. Ugh.

Plllog, I haven't tried that crust, but I'm saving the link because the girls could do that, or The Princess. I seldom have the patience to wait for a crust to chill for two hours, but maybe I'll get some more patience as I get some more age. You think?

Annie

I made an apple pie for dessert; I had no Crisco - or anything like it - so used lard and butter... and Vodka, and had a very delicious, flakey crust that got lots of yummy comments. It was a delicious pie... period. I had a mix of many different kinds of apples; out of the eight I could now name only three kinds: 1 Granny Smith, 1 Pink Lady, and 1 HoneyCrisp; the rest were an unknown variety of new kinds that I had bought to taste. Unfortunately, I can only try to reproduce it.

Annie, do I think you'll get more patience? Hopefully not, because that would probably imply brain damage! I do a lot of baking that requires going off and doing something else for awhile, so I'm used to it. If you plan it as a making chili day with pie breaks, rather than a making pie day, with the kids doing the squishing, it should be manageable. :) Since I read in another thread that you can make a pie in under ten minutes, I have no doubt it would take a whole different way of thinking! :) Even if I were doing one of my old standard recipes, I'd do Stella's chill everything and often method. I've been shivering and bundled up, here in the house, but the thermostat says it's 70° F, and the kitchen is warmer. The butter seems to think that's warmer than I do.

Plllog, I tend to keep the heat at 70F here, due to our geothermal heating system, but in White Cloud, where my old furnace ran on natural gas, the heat never went above 55F. You'd freeze but the pie crust loved it.

If I don't have to peel all the apples, or pit cherries, or some other time consuming prep, I can easily slap together a pie in 10 minutes. That's another reason I like the Nathan's Never Fail recipe, I can roll the dough without chilling and it's manageable!

Chilling pastry is something I'd have to schedule. (grin) I'm really busy now I'm retired you know. :-) I might be able to let the girls help me with the crust, then let Maci take her nap, and make pie when she got up.....

Annie

Sounds perfect! By the time she doesn't need a nap, she may be ready to make Nathan's Never Fail. ;)

If I had the furnace on, I could put it up to 72°, but I'd still be cold. I need to get adjusted to Winter temperatures but every other day it's hot! Pie doesn't love my Winter kitchen, either, though. I try to do 68° F but my family won't have it and, being something of a lizard, I don't move well when I'm that cold either. Chilling the rolling pin, bowls, silpat and ingredients helped a lot. I suppose I could whomp out a FP crust, dump some random filling in and get a pie done in 10 minutes, but it wouldn't be much fun, I don't think. But, as you said, you're busy, even if you don't have a calf anymore. ;)

Um, well, I have 8 cows. And a horse, and 21 chickens, 2 dogs and 2 cats. I do like my animals. (grin) Plus 200 asparagus crowns that needed the ferns trimmed today because it's going to be raining tomorrow and then highs in the 20s after that. People have been coming to cut Christmas trees, we have the "cut your own" thing but someone always needs change or a saw or help. We'll set hay tomorrow because I'm going out of town for three days (but driving home every evening) for some "Ag" classes, but I'll have to come home early on Wednesday evening because I'm secretary of our Township Planning Commission and we have a 7 pm meeting. The farrier is coming Tuesday and Elery is on his own for the first time for that. I need to bake cake for 100 by Sunday for Madi's birthday and an anniversary cake for Saturday for an elderly friend and his wife, 66 years of marriage. Then next week we start on Christmas baking because Elery's family Christmas is the 16th and we're taking ham, beef, lasagna, apple stack cake using his Mother's recipe, plus cookies and fudge. I need to bake a birthday treat for Elery's grandson Jack, he's 10, and we'll give him his birthday present at the Christmas party, but he's 10, he needs a cake or something so his birthday doesn't get lost in the Christmas shuffle. Oh, and I need to make fudge to send to California for Elery's oldest son and their family.

Fortunately for me, I can sliced apples and freeze fruit already sliced or peeled or whatever, so I really can make a 10 minute pie if I have to. It's not as much fun and it's sure not fancy, but it's pie and it'll do in a pinch.

Today, though, I made date filled cookies for no reason other than Elery likes them. They aren't the prettiest cookie on a plate, but they sure taste good!

Annie

Yep, any pie is good pie even if it isn't fun pie. :) I knew you were right busy--just not how much! That's why the joke about the calf. :) As if the absence of one calf would make a huge empty hole in your day...

I asked about your classes in another thread....also with a thread of silliness.

I've never heard of an apple stack cake.

Good grief Annie. HOW did you manage to do what you do, while you were working???

I find pie-making tedious, and I have no idea why. That's why I make Nathan's pie crust because I can make dough for 6 crusts and have them in the freezer. I'll put one in the frig the day before I'm planning to make a pie.

Our potatoes are still 10 lb, and our white milk is still in 4-litre bags, but the chocolate milk is in 3-litre bags. (just an observation, we don't buy chocolate milk). Our butter is still in 454 gram blocks (1 lb). Our pasta has shrunk to 750 gr from 900. It goes on and on.

I've read all these comments and there is only one that has any validity. The lady who wrote that she'd simply stopped making pies. Since Crisco changed thirteen years ago you can't make a decent pie crust. And I'd been making perfect pie crusts for forty years. Butter doesn't work. And lard is so unsatisfactory that that is the reason our mothers changed to Crisco all those decades ago! The whole idea of good pie crust is to not add too much water. It makes it tough. So ignore all these suggestions to add more water. Not to mention the weird suggestion to add vodka. I wish we could sue the Crisco people. Anyway, don't even try to make a pie crust like you'd made your whole life. It's no longer possible.

Lordy, what nonsense!! Folks were making perfectly good pie crusts long before there was anything like Crisco available! And butter crusts are wonderful and work perfectly well also. As does lard. I've never made a pie crust that used Crisco as that product just grosses me out (I don't use lard either but that's a different issue).

btw, the addition of vodka or vinegar to a pie crust recipe has science behind it so nothing weird about that suggestion at all. Both the vodka and the vinegar deter gluten development, making the pie crust very flaky and tender. Overworking the pastry makes it tough, not the moisture you add.

Total agreement, Gardengal!

The new version is messing up all my cookies recipes. I may try another brand