Has anyone tried using butter flavored crisco in your icing? Just wondering how it turned out.

A couple of questions have been asked I would like to respond to. How to make the buttercream smooth with no air holes. The air holes come from over beating the frosting...try beating less. And how to store buttercream - I have always frozen the frosting in plastic containers. It's so nice to have a few colors already made when you make something on the spur of the moment! Just take it out of the freezer, let thaw on counter, mix up and use.

My tip for buttercream is in regard to making two flavors on one cake. I always hate having to clean up the bowl and start with the 2nd flavor....so, now, I just make a double batch of buttercream, with nothing but vanilla flavoring, and take half of the batch out of the bowl. Then, I add the other ingredient to the remaining buttercream in the bowl and mix it up. Ex., I will add my cocoa, or a fruit filling to the remaining buttercream. So, I then have two different flavors, and only ONE mixing bowl cleanup!

When trying to get a vivid "black" buttercream, I start with chocolate. It doesn't require as much coloring.

Also, when trying to get deep reds, using a combination of powdered and paste coloring works great. Less thinning of icing and less taste of coloring.

Wilton offers a "No Taste" red paste coloring.

I only use heavy cream to thin buttercream. The key to having a smooth taste is to whip it really good before you add your cream. Buttercream can be stored for up to 3-4 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature. My buttercream never forms a crust, however, you can place plastic wrap directly over the buttercream. You can then place a top on your container.

Hi every one this is the recipe that my course instructer gave us and swears by it. It works very well and has a nice crusting effect to it. You keep this stored in a tight sealed container on your counter got up to 2 weeks or so.

1/2 lb of white crisco shortening (equals 1 cup )
1 tsp clear vanilla
1 kilo of icing sugar (approx 71/2 cups)
2/3 cups water
1/3 cup allpurpose flour
Mix for exactly 1 1/2 min no longer on med speed.

At first doesn't look like it is mixing but it is. Works very well for decorating and icing cakes.

Hope this helps

I tried using the butter flavored Crisco once, and it didn't help the flavor. It still just tasted like sweet grease. Some people like the flavor of the Crisco buttercream, though, so I shouldn't knock it. Also, the butter flavored Crisco made the frosting VERY yellow, so all my colors were way off.

I was just about to post a question about crusting vs non-crusting bc. I found that with the crusting bc you have to get everything smooth right away. I know you can go back and smooth it, but if you get a dent in it you're stuck. But, if you use non crusting than you can't get it ultra sooth, but if you accidentaly stick your finger into it you can just swipe it with the spatula again. Which do people prefer? Please help. Thanks

I learned that putting a few drops of vinger in your buttercream will help it from cracking when you have to move and already crusted cake

Ok, I know this has been asked before but when doing a FBCT, I almost always get those wormy lines on my filled in sections no matter how I try to smooth it out. How can I stop this?

Also, is there a trick to "flipping" the transfer over? I know it can be re-positioned but it tends to soften up by the time I can move it.

Wow, this thread is great.

I have seen a couple of posts about adding vinegar to your icing to prevent cracking. Can you taste it in the icing? Does this really work?

The best tips I can offer on buttercream.....
1. Use water instead of milk (stays fresh longer).
2. Do not beat too fast or too long, will add air bubbles.
3. Cover mixer with damp towel while mixing to eliminate powder clouds in the air.
4. Add light corn syrup at the end of mixing to create an icing that glides onto the cake (I add 1/4 cup to a 6 cup batch).
5. Allow icing to crust over at least 15 - 30 minutes then use parchment paper and your warm hand to smooth the cake.
BTW - I use the Wilton Buttercream recipe and substitute the milk with water.

I always add colored piping gel when I color my buttercream. I usually need a little extra color, but the piping gel keeps the consistancy from thinning, and it also helps my buttercream from cracking when I pipe letters or make roses and leaves.

Also, freezing roses helps prevent damage when transferring to a cake.

I use about 1 cup of venetian cream in my butter cream to my 1lb of shortening and white marg. I find it takes the sweetness away and leaves a pleasant taste, I also find it makes it fluffier! As for smoothing your icing, this one doesn't crust so the paper towel method doesn't work. I just use a warm spatula that I dipped in water to smooth my icing!

I've seen some cakes that say they're made with rolled buttercream. I've never heard of this so I'm not really sure what it is. I found a recipe for it but haven't seen anything saying how well it works or anything. I may be looking in the wrong place - if so, please tell me where to find more info on it. Thanks!

cakelady1994--I used light cream in place of milk or water and also added white chocolate. I use and extract called creme bouquet instead of vanilla. It tasted great-not too sweet but it was too fluffy to decorate with. Perfect for icing the cake but impossible to make anything like roses. Were you able to do anything with yours, other than coat the cake?

sorry cakelady-didn't realize your post about whipping cream was from '05! i am a newbie after all! i didn't read all of the posts so i'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this but one thing that helps me a lot is to dip my spatula in hot water when icing the cake. it makes it almost perfectly smooth.

what about is there a certain brand of flavoring everyone likes to use. I personaly like using watkins clear double strength vanilla (11 fl. oz 8.99 a bottle). and they also have other flavor extracts.

mjrhooligan
i just posted asking about rolled buttercream icing if you want to read what has been said about it

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-462464-.html#462464

Awesome krzyzak thank you!

You guys are absolutely amazing!!! In the short time I've been here, I've gotten all kinds of GREAT tips!

The main reason I signed up on this site is so that I could get into the forum and get answers to most of my questions. I have had problems over the years with buttercream. There were times when I combined the Crisco-based buttercream with the Italian buttercream in order to get something that didn't taste like grease. It boggles my mind when you make your frosting a certain way for a while and then all of a sudden, that recipe doesn't work right. Has anyone else experienced that problem? After all these years, now my frosting is tasting more like Crisco when there's a lot of butter in it. I've gotten several frosting recipes off these threads that I'm going to try out.

Regarding the article on buttercream, I think that when including recipes, they need to specify the speed in which to beat the frosting. I thought you were supposed to beat the frosting at high speeds in order to make it fluffy and get rid of the grainy taste from the confectioner's sugar. Now I'm going to try beating it longer at a lower speed to see how that works.

I too use whipping cream instead of the milk or water so now I'm going to try using milk and water as specified in the recipes I chose.

I'm very happy to be part of an incredible group of bakers and am looking forward to getting to the level where I can enter competitions and actually meet some of you in person!

I actually tried not being lazy the last time I made regular buttercream (the Wilton recipe). I sifted the powdered sugar before I added it to the mixer. It was such a huge difference! I could see and feel how much smoother it was.

I would like to see this article cover information about BC recipes. Whenever I use all Crisco I don't like the taste but it's great for decorating. When I use 1/2 butter 1/2 Crisco, then it doesn't work as well for decorating because it turns out shinny and doesn't hold as well. Is there a good recipe that will crust but isn't 100% Crisco?

I would really like to know once this article gets posted. I'm new to this site so I don't know how I would view it and when. Can you tell me?

Thanks,
Michelle

I haven't read all the way through the posts yet, but how about covering "tips on preventing cracking"-I'm having that problem now, at least on my last 2 cakes-I love the Viva towel method-discovered by accident, then started really getting into reading in the forums and it's actually a method. I don't think I'll use anything else for smoothness, but what to do about the cracking!?! Help!