I have a question. Maybe someone can help me out. I made chocolate buttercream this past weekend to go under MMF fondant. I never have problems with my buttercream, nor does it ever crust or get super hard or anything. I hardly ever put it in the fridge, but even if I do, it never crusts. Anyway, I always make the Wilton with 100% shortening and no butter, but always use the Wilton flavorings which are either butter or vanilla. I have never used the almond one. I decided to use almond, but I used the McCormick one since I didn't have any Wilton. I also added Wilton's vanilla. Well, I'm thinking that may have been the problem. What do you all think? That is the ONLY thing I did different, which was use a different brand of flavoring. I've used the strawberry Mccormick before, but that didn't happen or maybe it was because I also added a generous amount of strawberry juice from frozen strawberries. I'm so confused. Even the leftover buttercream that I stored in the fridge got extremely hard. What do you all think?

The extra liquid from the strawberries would help prevent crusting.

Refrigeration will make it hard, but if it was well covered, only the surface should be 'crusted'. You can rescue the remainder with some additonal liquid, milk or water. Let it warm to room temp, first.

Thank you. I appreciate the tip. However, I'm a little concerned now because I'm going to be making the peppermint buttercream using the McCormick peppermint extract and I am afraid that the same thing is going to happen. I guess I'll start decorating asap, lol! Hopefully, it won't create a huge problem. I think part of my problem this time was that I was going to put the MMF on top and icing was dry.

I can't imagine that the small amount of flavoring added to 2+ pounds of sugar would make that much of a difference. But I've no other ideas to suggest either.