Hi everyone

I'm searching for a great tasting frosting for cupcakes but I can't seem to find one which meets all my criteria...

I need the frosting to be great tasting, crusting, easy to colour (I've heard that some buttercreams are difficult to colour especially the darker colours), easy to pipe swirls, petals, etc., will hold up well in heat (in Summer, we have temps up to 45C), doesn't require refrigeration and I also need to be able to source all ingredients in Australia.

I regularly use American Buttercream, but find it to be VERY sweet. If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance xx

if you need it to hold up in the heat you definitely cannot use butter (stick with shortening, maybe get some butter extract if necessary).  Whip your margarine/shortening together for a solid 5 minutes prior to doing ANYTHING else. You can add some cream cheese as well at this point, and a spoon of lemon juice.  Let this whip WELL. Add your icing sugar, and then use some  WARM buttercream syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water) to help melt all of the icing sugar, and continue to WHIP well, scraping the sides. 

As an alternative to the buttercream syrup, you can add COLD heavy cream (only once you have WELL MIXED and SCRAPED THE BOWL) and WHIP WHIP WHIP and your buttercream will fluff right up and definitely be what you are looking for.

To meet all of your requirements, I think you're kind of stuck with American Buttercream. While Vancouver Canada isnt quite as hot as Australia, I've had great success this summer using the following recipe for over 1000 cupcakes this summer:

1 cup salted butter

1 cup shortening

1 kg icing sugar

2 tsp clear vanilla

Butter extract - I find this helps to reduce the sweetness

5-6 Tbsp high fat milk

This makes a nice smooth buttercream that is a little more on the fluffier side and is great to pipe with the 2D or 1M tip....I think the 2D tip uses a little less icing.  It also colours great too, even dark colours. I did a couple of fuschia coloured rosette cakes with matching rose cupcakes using Wilton's Rose colouring gel and a 2D tip and they turned out fabulous!

If you are decorating a cake with the above icing and need a stiffer consistency for decorations just reduce the amount of milk. I've used the above recipe as is to ice my cakes and it turns out great but for some decorations you need it to be stiffer.

I hope this helps :)
 

AThe fact that you need it to be crusting eliminates all icings except American BC. So that's really your only option.

To help with the sweeteners I've seen several people add popcorn salt, they say that helps. Also you could add a small amount of lemon JUICE. It cuts the sweetness without adding a lemon taste

AIt freezes and thaws great :)