Fats: A note about butter and shortenings

I was asked to explain what emulsified shortening and liquid shortening are and if you can substitute it. After doing some reading this is what I found:

"Emulsified shortening is also known as cake, icing or high ratio shortening. It can absorb more sugar and liquid than regular vegetable shortening and gives a finer/smoother texture to cakes while helping to keep them moist, as well as keeping icings more stable. It's mostly used in icings and cakes where the recipe contains a large percentage of sugar. Alpine Hi-Ratio Shortening and Sweetex are the most common brands."
I found that from a blog called: Cheftalk.com
http://www.cheftalk.com/forum/thread/37802/emulsified-shortening

And from ask.com I could gather that: "Animal-based shortenings are all solid at room temperature, but vegetable shortenings can be either. Solid and liquid also behave differently depending upon the application and the working temperature. Generally speaking, solid shortenings are used to create 'flakes' inside doughs or batters."
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_liquid_shortening_the_same_as_solid_shortening



If you want to substitute regular shortening for all or part of the butter in a formula:
Multiply the weight of the butter to be eliminated by 0.8. This will give you the amount of regular shortening to use. Then multiply the weight of the eliminated butter by 0.15 to get the weight of additional water or milk you need to add (butter contains natural liquids that shortening doesnt contain).

To substitute butter for all or part of the regular amount of shortening in a formula:
Multiply the weight of shortening to be eliminated by 1.25. This gives your the weight of butter to use. Then multiply the weight of butter by 0.15 to find out the amount of water or milk to be subtracted from the formula (Gisslen, 384)


Because of the properties, liquid shortening can not be substituted for butter or regular shortening. The vegetable oil has moistening qualities that wont be replicated with butter or regular shortening. Emulsified shortening can be substituted with the above equation.