It's been a disaster so far. I'm trying to make a tier cake. Made the bottom layer and ran out of eggs for the next two layers. I tried making a one egg cake recipe and it came out very thin. Went to the store and bought more eggs and tried again with hte other two layers. They stuck to the pan and fell apart. I remade the top layer and salvage the middle layer. Now on to the buttercream. I made the usuall recipe that I got from this site (1/2 cup butter, 1 1/2 cup shortning, 2 lbs powder sugar, flavoring and water. I mixed until smooth and then another minute, but for some reason it's very soft and not crusting like ussual. Any suggestions?

You didn't say how much water so that may be the problem. I don't use butter and water so I can't say all I can do is give you what I use and I don't have a problem.

I take 2 cups crisco and mix it with 2 tsp clear vanilla and 1/4 tsp butter flavoring. Then I alternate mixing 2lbs powdered sugar to 3/4 -1 cup milk I make thicker for flowers but use the whole cup if doing icing. This crusts in about 10 min. Good luck.

I use 1 cup butter, 1 cup shortening, 2 lb. powdered sugar, 2 tsp flavoring, 1 TBS meringue powder, and about 4 TBS water.