O.K. I'm posting this again because I think I did it wrong last time and sent it as a private message to myself 
Anyway, I have an order for a birthday cake 
but the lady does not want any Crisco in the icing. Can I substitute the appropriate amount of butter for Crisco or will that end up on the "Cake Disasters" page? I appreciate any advice! Also, I'm getting a computer tutorial this weekend to learn how to get my pictures up loaded. Thanks for your help!
Sue
It depends on what your weather is like.....you can use all butter (and it tastes divine), but here in Houston, I can only use it about 4 months out of the year! And it will definitely be softer than a crisco icing, so making decorations other than simple ones has been difficult for me.
Another option might be a whipped topping type icing?
but the lady does not want any Crisco in the icing.
Did she say why - I've had people saw Crisco is horrible - I wouldn't eat icing with it in it - but the love Buttercream - my favorite is white buttercream. Is there a reason?
I would not do all butter - just asking for a landslide IMO!
If you do all butter- buttercream and are in the US looking at the weather map this morning it isn't going to hold up anywhere for any length of time. I do use a mostly butter buttercream and you have to omit most if not all liquid from your regular recipe, keep in ac and it should be fine. I do add some crisco to help with stability.
Most importantly is to mix your powdered sugar and butter and any flavorings, then start with liquid if you need any.
First, I don't normally decorate cakes. However, I do bake them from scratch and frost them with real butter cream frostings and I have never had one fall apart or lose it's icing. If the weather is hot, I will stick the cake in the refrigerator. Also, I made the white almond sour cream cake people talk about earlier this week. I wouldn't expect real butter cream to support such a heavy cake. I understand why it is used for wedding cakes, it tastes nice and it was certainly durable and easy to handle. If you are used to handling scatch cakes, I would do so in this case. Keep the decorations very simple; and if you have hot hands, stick the bag back in the frig. frequently.
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