I just made a cake for someone and the majority of the cake was a beach scene. I used Wilton buttercream and a little bit of brown Wilton coloring like I usually do. Once the cake sat overnight, the next morning the light brown/beige sand had white spots all in it. It looked like the shortening didn't mix up all the way (which it did). The icing left in the bowl was also like that. I did everything like normal and I ended up having to sprinkle light brown sugar (to make it look like sand) on the cake to cover the spots. Does anybody know what could have happeded?

Help!!!

Thanks a bunch!

I have heard of this before. If you use salt in your icing, it is probably undissolved salt. It can cause little white spots in the colors.

Oh ok...that makes sense!

I do use a little salt to cut the sweetness.

Thank you so much for your help!!

This is a good example of why it is best to color your icings in advance, if possible. That way, if you wake up the next morning, ready to decorate and your icing has spots - you just stir it a bit and you are good to go!

White spotted colors has been discussed for yrs. No one has really come up w/*the* answer.
Many think it is undissolved salt. They recommend you dissolve the salt in your liquid before adding to your b'cream. Others recommend the use of extra fine 'popcorn' salt.
Yrs ago w/teaching in another communmity I was convinced it was 'hard' water there as it had never happened to me just some 20-30 miles away
Really still don't know for sure.
Some people complaining of this say they don't/haven't used salt which makes it even more of a mistery!

WOW!!

Thank you all so much for all the help.

I hate coloring bc for that exact reason. White spots. I truly believe it's from the shortening (crisco). I try my best to mix it together at high speed with my mixer to a creamy consistency before I continue to make the bc. I have found that colored icing needs to sit as mentioned overnight at least. Prior to using it, I always mix it up very well and that seems to work for spots. I wonder if because it sits for a while, it melds together. I don't know about you, but I use 1/2 white margerine and 1/2 crisco and I get this problem.

So I feel your pain.