I've decided to make my daughter's first birthday cake, and I'm in need of an awesome crusting American Buttercream recipe ASAP! All of the recipes I have tried feel so gritty! The only experience I have with buttercream icing is the American version and that is also the only type of icing that my family is accustomed to.... I love the white color of an all shortening recipe, but the film it tends to leave in your mouth is not quite so appealing.

Also, two questions that I hope someone can answer for me:
1) Why do some recipes call for meringue powder? Does it act as a stabilizer in the icing? does it cahnge the texture?
2) I've read on a couple recipes that they go ahead and dissolve the powdered sugar in hot or boiling liquid in order to reduce the gritty feeling.... does this work, and has anyone tried it?? If so, what were the results and do you have the recipe?

Any help will be greatly appreciated! I'm new to this and I'm super stressed out about making sure everything is perfect for my little girl's birthday!


Thank You!

I never use Meringue powder in my butter cream. Never found a reason to. I use "Buttercream Dream" here in the recipe section. Never gritty.....always white and doesn't leave a film.

I live in Louisiana where it gets Africa hot and I've never had a problem. Good luck. I'm sure more will chime in with their favorite.

My favorite recipe is "Sugarshack's buttercream". It comes out so nice and smooth with no air bubbles and it's delicious. This is the tutorial Sharon has made for her icing on youtube.

(* Just a note...I use flavored coffee creamer heated up instead of the powder Coffeemate and I also use vanilla, almond and butter flavor instead of the flavoring that Sharon uses. )

HTH...

I have tried sugarshacks recipe also...but her recipe calls for high ratio shortening which will eliminate the greasy feel in your mouth.


I also use indydebi bc on here but hers calls for plain ol' crisco...I have not done it that way...I always sub crisco for high ratio. But if you use crisco in this recipe you will be fine.

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6992/indydebis-crisco-based-buttercream-icing