I have been baking as a hobby for several years now and my butter cream is always gritty.  I have tried different 10X sugars, I have sifted the sugar before adding into the butter, I have used meringue powder, I have tried different butters.  I have tried beating it a long time.  I feel like I have tried everything and I cannot get creamy butter cream.  the recipe I use if from Epiocurious.com. 

I have also seen on Food TV that there is something that you pros use to make the icing creamy.  Can anyone PLEASE help. 

Thanks

Deb

I get creamy buttercream, used to be gritty until I switched to a kind that says "Cane Sugar." I also mix it for about 10 minutes. I've used a few recipes on here with success. The only "special equipment" I use is a mixer using the beater blade. A Simple recipe is 2 pounds of 10x Cane Sugar with 2 cups of butter/shortening with 1/4 cup of liquid. Do not use margarine or oil! The brand I use is Dominos brand. If it doesn't say cane sugar, it's probably not.

Here isIndydebi's, I have used all butter instead of shortening, but if you do that start with 1/4 cup of liquid instead of 1/3c.

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

There are also cooked flour buttercreams and meringue buttercreams too. :)

nothing on you, craftyb but that recipe has twice as much fat as mine -- i've always wondered if someone typo-ed it one day way back when where it might have said 2 sticks of butter (which of course is one cup) and someone wrote 2 cups of butter -- i mean at the least peeps could try it w/less butter see if you like it and save a few bucks that way if indeed you might like it ok --

but all that to say yes crafty is right on the money -- yesterday i finally polished off a 50# bag of domino's powdered sugar that i have had for several years -- bought for a project that fell through so i just kept pluggin' away at it -- and memphis is way humid and i just kept crunching down the top of the bag (not keeping it airtight) in a rolling lidded bakery bin -- it was good till the last drop!

i mean i had to sift it but yeah was great stuff -- a teensy bit more pricey but the other stuff is pure waste right? so it's the bargain brand no matter the price -- and buying in quantity is the way to go --

funny story -- there was a huge hue and cry at my local sam's club when they tried to switch from cane to the crum bum grit sugar -- pretty funny hearing it from the forklift operator's perspective when they got the first cane sugar shipment back in stock -- anyhow

My recipe is 2-1/2 cups fat to 2 pounds sugar.  And the only liquids are a tablespoon of vanilla and a squirt of lemon juice. I don't get a gritty buttercream, but I also "set it, and forget it" for quite some time.  Always makes it creamy without having to add a bunch of liquid.