Hello Everyone,
I am new to this form and new to cake decorating. I have been through all the Wilton classes and thoroughly enjoyed them. I recently used Rich's Bettercreme in place of making my own buttercream and found that I asbolutely hated it. 
It seems like the more I tried to smooth out the cake the worse it looked. Can anyone tell me what I might have been doing wrong? It sounds like everyone on here that has used it, seems to like it. It just seems like the buttercream is sooo much easier to smooth out. I bought a couple of quarts of it at GFS and followed the directions to a tee. Now what was supposed to be a special cake for my parents 42nd wedding anniversary is a big disappointment to me and I am embarassed to give it to them. (They never had a wedding cake and I thought I would surprise them with a "mini" wedding cake.) 
If anyone out there could give some guidance I would be most appreciative! 
I found that if I let it set for a bit before smoothing it worked better. Kind of like you let the buttercreme set before smoothing. It helped a lot for me.
I work with my dil at her bakery.... we have used rich's buttercreme... we got it in 5 gallon buckets and noticed that every few buckets we would run into the same problem as you describe... I think it has something to do with their over beating it... We now use our own version of buttercream... and seem to be happy everytime... good luck getting the right consistency in whichever icing you use.
I use Rich's BETTERcreme all the time. I have never used Rish's BUTTERcreme. I too use the BETTERcreme in the ready made 5 gallon buckets.
I use a pastry bag with an icer tip to frost it. I also have it placed on a turntable and after icing it with the bag, I take an icing/bucket scraper (same as a becnh scraper) and place it on the icing and turn the turntable at the same time. Mine is very smooth.
I do put my icing on very thick. I wipe off the excess with the scraper.
I have never used the BUTTERcreme mix, that you add stuff to and mix it with a mixer, mine comes premade, so maybe that is why you are having problems. Maybe it's in the mixing. ??
I hope you can give it another try. 99% of my customers prefer BETTERcrem over BUTTERcreme.
Cindy
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