What is up with this! I have never been able to get my frosting to crust! I have tried multiple consistencies. Here is my old recipe, given to me by my aunt who took the Wilton courses in the 70's:

2 lb bag of powdered sugar
2 cups of shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup of cold whole milk
Mix together the milk, sugar, salt and extracts
Whip in the shortening

Last night I made a batch and after reading a lot of comments here and looking in the Wilton's 2007 year book, I reduced the milk 2Tablespoons for stiff icing, 4 Tablespoons for thin. I also creamed the shortening and sugar with the extracts and salt first then added the milk. I frosted the cake at 11pm and put it in the fridge. Today at 2pm I got it out and went to smooth it with the Viva method (although I use computer paper, whatever). It still hadn't crusted hard! I passed my hand over once and it stuck to the paper, so I tried wax paper and it stuck to that too! The stiffer frosting I saved for some decorative stuff and it had trouble flowing smoothly. It was kinda clumpy, and hasn't crusted yet (its been an hour)!

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???? I want to give up, at least for now! I have been dying to try the stuff I have learned reading here, and keep dreaming that one trick and I will have great icing to work with, but my cakes look like crap and I am blowing my diet with every experiment!!!

Sorry for the vent!

Any help is appreciated!
Ck41500

PS. one bright spot I tried the rope border rather than a shell and it was easier than I thought and looked pretty good! Too bad I ran out of icing before I got all the way around!!

It looks like you have too much milk in your recipe to allow it to crust. You could try reducing the milk to 1/3 cup or less. If you are using the new crisco, you might even need to go less then that. You can always add more milk once you have the icing made if you need to thin it out.

Have you tried one of the "crusting buttercream" recipes listed in the recipe section? I've noticed on my own cakes that the recipes that use butter seem to crust really well for me. When I started to use shortening the icing didn't crust as well...Good luck!

I don't like using crusting BC as much because it's harder to smooth and it's...crusty! If you put it in the fridge, it has the same effect as crusting without the crust.

Crust/No Crust and Why:

http://tinyurl.com/ywtr3e

(From Sarah Phillips of baking911.com.)

You could substitute water for part of the milk to improve crusting.

HTH

Wouldn't putting the cake in the fridge and then taking it out hours later cause condensation to form, making the surface damp and hard to smooth?
I use up to 1/4 c water - no milk - in mine and I don't put it the the fridge and I've had no problems with crusting.

I never refrigerate me either.
Judy

I never refrigerate mine either.
Judy

Thanks for the replies...
Just to clarify a bit... I only used 4T this batch so 1/4 cup milk.
I put it in the fridge because it was humid out and I didn't want it sitting over night with the humidity here. My fridge is on the fritz (whole other vent!!) so it was only 50 degrees in there anyway!!
Also the decorations that were with the stiffer icing were never in the fridge and it didn't get a nice crust, like enough to make flowers (as if I knew how too!!)

I will have to try water rather than milk...Hum now I need to bake a new cake....Yep I am redeeming my no weigh in pass at Weight Watchers this week for sure!!

Try more powdered sugar! I use about a cup of shortening or butter to ever 2 lb bag of sugar. I know it sounds like a lot, but I also add a teeny bit of salt, and use coffee creamer instead of water or milk (I don't measure that part, just keep adding it a little at a time until it's the right consistency for my purposes). It crusts like a dream.

Maybe it was just too humid for it to crust. Try a fan blowing on the cake to see if it helps to dry it out.