I just tried makeing my halloween cake one I plan on entering in the contest but I think I did something wrong I made home made buttercream iceing for the first time here in misssouri anyways when I was putting it on my cake it was doing a melting kind of thing nothing wanted to hold its form ...Any Ideas of where I could have gone wrong?
Lisa 
Yeah I cooled it over night well from 2 am on !! lol thats what i thought to but I put it in the fridge for a few min and bring it back out but with in 5 to 10 min it seems to melt .. could the humidity here cause this? its 34% humididty here..
Lisa
No offense but 34% humidity?? Try being in the south! What did you put in it?? Even with high humidity, a BC won't just "melt".
I did have a problem this summer with my buttercream just sliding off the sides of The cake. It would appear to be set then all of a sudden it would start flowing from below. LOL It was like a lava flow where the surface is hard and it just flows below... It seemed as if the Crisco was just leaching out.
To be honest, I have not quite figured it out... I added more powdered sugar and I changed the batch of Crisco I was using and it worked.
If you used butter the water content of the butter was probably to blame. The cheaper butters generally have more water in them, European style butters have less water, more butterfat. If it's your first time trying real butter or a different brand of butter, don't add your liquid until the very end because you may not need it.
it was 1/2 cup crisco the butter flavored one
1/2 cup butter i used land of lakes
1 teaspoon clear vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar used C&H
2 tablespoons milk
and I have lived in AZ my whole life so I have never delt with humidity with cooking I know you r suppose to change ingredents depending on the humidity but as for that Im clueless.. 
Lisa
I got a funky batch of BC with butter flavored crisco too. Don't know if that's it or not!?
it was 1/2 cup crisco the butter flavored one
1/2 cup butter i used land of lakes
1 teaspoon clear vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar used C&H
2 tablespoons milk
and I have lived in AZ my whole life so I have never delt with humidity with cooking I know you r suppose to change ingredents depending on the humidity but as for that Im clueless..
Lisa
The recipe sounds fine but when you say cooking...did you cook anything? Or was that just a general term?
There is a higher moisture content in the butter flavoured Crisco. Also, for some people, that have really warm hands, using 5 cups of powdered sugar instead of 4 is the way to go.
And as Lisa says, did you heat your butter or cook your icing? You do not do this with this kind of icing.
Hugs Squirrelly
I use the butter flavored crisco, but I always add liquid as needed too.. never follow the amount they state.. Most of it is eyeballed when I make it actually.. is that a bad thing? LOL
klk, I'm from Missouri too and have never had this problem even in the summer, but.... I have never used the butter flavored Crisco either. Like was mentioned, maybe decrease the liked. Good luck and let us know how it works for you!
Sorry I can't come up wioth any other reasons for what happened, that haven't already been mentioned. But in defense of Butter Flavored Crisco....I use that in my chocolate buttercream, always, with great results!
Curious, but do you use cocoa in your chocolate buttercream? Because if you do, then generally adding cocoa means you need to make a substantial increase in liquid. Perhaps the butter-flavoured Crisco, because it has a higher moisture content, takes care of this little issue, just fine.
Hugs Squirrelly
In a cake class there was someone who had that problem and it seemed that her icing was too "wet" and had too much moisture in it. I would continue to add more sugar to stiffen it back up.
Sorry I can't come up wioth any other reasons for what happened, that haven't already been mentioned. But in defense of Butter Flavored Crisco....I use that in my chocolate buttercream, always, with great results!
Curious, but do you use cocoa in your chocolate buttercream? Because if you do, then generally adding cocoa means you need to make a substantial increase in liquid. Perhaps the butter-flavoured Crisco, because it has a higher moisture content, takes care of this little issue, just fine.
Hugs Squirrelly
....I also add additional water too!
A similar problem of mine was fixed when I paid extra attention to the measuring spoon. I never thought about the water "humping" or "mounding"over the spoon. That was getting too much liquid into the mix and causing the icing to "melt" off the cake.
I've learned to do slightly less than level, then add a little more after everything is mixed.
Another potential problem is the powdered sugar maker. Different manufacturers/plants put different amounts of cornstarch in the sugar. Maybe the new boxes have less corn starch than in your old town.
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