I tried Dawn's recipe, mixed the icing longer and still ended up with lots of holes. Most of them did smooth out with the hot water though. I must be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what it is.

Please help!!! I have made several more attempts at buttercream icing and no matter what I try I still am getting lots of holes and I can't get them out even with a hot spatula. There must be something that I am doing wrong. I am using 1/2 crisco 1/2 Land O'Lakes butter recipe. The last time I mixed it longer than usual and still had the holes. I am so frustrated, please give any suggestions.

The last few minutes of mixing, I turn my mixer on low and I think that cuts down on the bubbles. Also, just before using my icing, I take my rubber spatula and really work it in the icing in a figure eight motion, back and forth and turn my bowl/container...you will see that this REALLY pops those pesky little air bubbles!

Sounds like air bubbles to me. Sometimes that can come from mixing it too much

Thanks for responding. I usually keep my mixer on the lowest speed the whole time and I just mix long enough to get everything combined. Some of the posts said that they mix longer so I even tried that, but with no luck. I've tried the rubber spatula, but maybe I need to do that longer.