HELP PLEASE.....

I am a little "upset" at the moment. I used HiRatio (Sweetex) for the first time in my BC today and it is not crusting!!!! Still just sitting there doing nothing.....

Here is the recipe that I used:
1/2 cup hot Creamora (1/2 c water to 1/2 cup Creamora powdered coffee creamer)
9 oz Sweetex
9 oz Crisco
8 cups powdered sugar
1 T. flavoring of choice

I am using this on a trial cake but I need to do it for keeps tomorrow! The BC was the smoothest ever and I was so excited (WOW - just like velvet) and now it has been on the cake for an hour and it still has not crusted. I want to and always do the Viva thing and this is not even a remote possibility now. I would hate to see what would happen if I laid fondant over this as I am sure it would come out of the bottom or bubble or something.

I also had a lot of air bubbles in the stuff and I doubled the recipe so that it would fill my KA and hopefully would avoid that problem. Maybe I beat it toooooo much --- toooo little....who knows anymore.

Suggestions - HELP - is this what HiRatio does - not crust? I have always used Indydeb's and her's crusts perfectly but it is all Crisco no HiRatio. I must say that this recipe is much creamier and smoother than Indy's (sorry Indy - as I am a disciple of yours). I wanted to try the HiRatio and drove 5 hours round trip to get it and paid a premium price.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated from all of you HiRatio CCer's.

Thanks.

Maybe it is too humid in your kitchen or too much liquid in the frosting?

That happens to me when I use too much liquid. The recipe usually requires only several tablespoons, not 1/2 cup.
HTH

I too think too much liquid. I use only high ratio and it crusts very well. good luck

Not humid today in Wisconsin - high was 65!!! And I have AC but not on today!! I will use less liquid tomorrow. Thanks for answering me question. I really loved the texture of it - I still can't believe what a difference the HiRatio makes.

Is your 18 ounces of fat by weight or volume? A liquid cup is 8 ounces so if it's by volume, you used over 2 cups of fat. If it's 18 oz by weight, would you convert that to cups so we know how much fat you used? (A cup of nails weighs different than a cup of feathers.)

More fat ... less crusting.

I, too, have that problem with hi-ratio. I love the taste and texture, but it seems to be alot harder to work with. I don't know what the answer is. I thought maybe it was the humidity in my kitchen. I used Indydebi's buttercream before that and it crusts absolutely wonderfully. To go from that to this is very difficult, but I do love the hi-ratio buttercream in all other aspects.

Lisa

Good point Indy!

I weighed it on my little scale and six ounces was one cup - so I used 1 1/2 cups of each kind. I also also weighed the Crisco.

I might have been off 1/4 to 1/2 of an ounce or so. Indy - do you have to be very exact?

I also used the whole 1/2 cup of liquid.

I use high ratio shortening in IndyDebi's recipe and it works every time. Very smooth, very nice. I find that it goes from not crushed to crushed in a matter of seconds, so when I go to smooth it with the viva, I get that elephant skin look.

If it won't crust, try smoothing it with a hot spatula. Dip it in very hot water, wipe it dry and smooth your icing. Keep dipping it in the hot water, wipe dry and smooth. Should work fine.

I don't know if this would be helpful, but in my frosting I use 1 TB of meringue powder which is what I was taught to help with crusting. I haven't used any of the recipes from this site yet so I don't know if it would be appropriate or not.

Good Luck!

Didn't the recipe call for meringue powder? That's usually what promotes the crusting. I could be wrong. But that's just my thought.

Another thing that I see is 1/2 C water + 1/2 creamer does not = 1/2 cup creamer. Do you mix this & then measure 1/2 c from that? I use Sugarshack's recipe, which uses creamer & hi-ratio (Indydebi, once you use it you'll never look back!!! & I get Wesson's Super Quik Blend & is about 1/2 the price of Sweetex). But when I use 14 T Creamer mixture I only use 10 T of water & 10 T creamer & this gives me 14 T of the mixture. Hope that makes sense. And about 190 g or 6.8 oz = 1 C shortening

Wow I never knew butter cream was so difficult.....I hope i never have this problem....and by the way I use 2 tablespoons usually of liquid....I prefer cream....but never all that you used....wow thats too much....sometimes, I find I do not need any because its humid and does not need any....try another recipe maybe

also yes I also use meringue powder

As you get used to the hi-ratio you'll see that you don't need nearly as much as regular shortening. I use about 1/3 less hi-ratio in place of Crisco so for example if the recipe calls for 1 cup of Crisco, I use 2/3 cup.

Try using less hi-ratio and a little less liquid and your icing should crust better for you.

I actually prefer a non-crusting bc. I find it much easier to work with. But I never understood the Viva thing.

I love the viva "thing" because it makes my butter cream look like smooth fondant without fondant..

Many hi-ratio recipes are meant to be non-crusting, I think. I use WBH house buttercream a lot and it is a lovely hi-ratio recipe that does not crust at all.
Easiest thing to do is probably just find another recipe. Sorry

Just a quick note with the Viva thing - if it has a pattern to it, it will also imprint that on your cake. They have a diamond pattern and I used it on several of my cakes (bottom row in my pics - "We love our grandmas" and the Baptism one). Because I can't seem to get the frosting perfect like I would like to on a big cake (like a full sheet cake), the Viva thing helps and adds another dimension to the cake. (*Note: if I had some of the talent you ladies (and guys) did, I wouldn't need to look for some alternatives! )

Have a great day!

Thanks to all of you!!!

I am going to try it again - but today I am going to go back to Indy's recipe as I know that I will have success. I am going to have to think about all of the info and try a trial run again - less shortening & less water. This time I am certainly not going to do a double batch.

The recipe did not ask for meringue powder, neither does Indy's.

Indy - please get some HiRatio and then let us know how to change your fantastic recipe to get the results that we do now. I love your recipe. I am interested to hear what you have to say after you try the HiRatio I was quite surprised at the difference in the texture of the BC. I am just a newbie at this compared to most of you and I could not imagine that the HiRatio would make any difference - but it does.

Would love to know about Wessons Super Quik Blend.

My HiRatio was $3.50 a pound and I bought six pounds. If I ever get this thing figured out I will order a larger quantity on line which will be a much better price per pound even with shipping and freeze it. You can freeze it for up to a year - just divide it up into the size that you would use for your recipe and only un-thaw what you are going to use at the time. I froze my 6 pounds in smaller 1 cup to 2 cup chunks and took out what I needed yesterday and did not notice any difference.

The owner of the store where I bought the HiRatio said that a lot of her customer's freeze theirs and have never had any problems and it does not change the consistency or anything else and that her sister who decorates cakes as a business freezes hers all of the time.

I always thought meringue powder just stopped the colors from bleeding into each other. I've skipped it in my BC before and never had a problem with it not crusting.

The key to using Hi-Ratio, according to the lady I bought it from, is to use less. If you use 1 cup of regular shortening, use 2/3 cup of Hi-Ratio. I didn't know this the first time I used it and my icing didn't crust on a very important cake. I freaked!!

Also, meringue powder does NOT make buttercream crust. I really wish instructors would stop teaching that. The crusting is caused by the ratio of fat to sugar.

I had never heard of this till the other day on here. Is it a special kind of shortening? Are you trying this new shortening in an old recipe? If it is something that is new and different You might even try to contact that company that makes it and tell them what you are trying to do with it and what you need. They may be able to come up with what changes you need to make to your recipe. That is if it isn't just that You used too much shortening. I have made Indydebi's icing twice and I love it. It tastes good and crusts good, but no matter what you put in it might be the new shortening also. Somebody mentioned that they thought a recipe called for Meringue powder, but if they were talking about Indydebi's recipe it is different. It calls for a package of Dreamwhip. No, actually it calls for 3 T. dreamwhip. I didn't catch that the first time I made it and just put the whole package in, but it still was very good.

I had never heard of this till the other day on here. Is it a special kind of shortening? Are you trying this new shortening in an old recipe? If it is something that is new and different You might even try to contact that company that makes it and tell them what you are trying to do with it and what you need. They may be able to come up with what changes you need to make to your recipe. That is if it isn't just that You used too much shortening. I have made Indydebi's icing twice and I love it. It tastes good and crusts good, but no matter what you put in it might be the new shortening also. Somebody mentioned that they thought a recipe called for Meringue powder, but if they were talking about Indydebi's recipe it is different. It calls for a package of Dreamwhip. No, actually it calls for 3 T. dreamwhip. I didn't catch that the first time I made it and just put the whole package in, but it still was very good.