So when I started out making cakes i used the Wilton Buttercream recipe and never was overjoyed with the flavor. I have been using a recipe given to me by a woman in town who has been makin cakes for 40 years. Her recipe doesn't use butter just crisco. I find that i can never get it really smooth.....always kind of gritty and seems to have a lot of air bubbles that appear everytime i smooth it out. Everyone just raves over the flavor tho.
I have a wedding cake to do in the next month and I really could use some help because they want buttercream and I know my recipe just wont give the fabulous results a wedding cake deserves. Any suggestions or alternate recipes would be greatly appreciated.
Also, does anyone else have problems when coloring their icing? I have noticed that it seems to seperate when i finish mixing it. So I dont get a true color sometimes...... 
Thanks for taking the time to read!
Sincerely,
Frustrated with Frosting!
sometime back I bought the dvd perfecting the art of buttercream from Sharon at sugaredproductions.com she shows you some awesome techniques for your buttercream and i have seen a big difference in my cakes so much easier I love the dvd maybe you can try it
Here's a forum topic on "Everything you wanted to know about Buttercream"
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-1353.html
It has many, many pages but you don't have to read them all. I read several before I started my last cake. One big help to me was to never beat the frosting faster than medium speed, or a 2-3 on a KA mixer. This helps with the air bubbles. As for the color, I only use gel or paste food colors. If you are using the liquid ones, they would separate as water and oil (crisco) don't mix. You might try not mixing too much after adding the color...just until it's blended, maybe even mixing the last bit by hand.
The recipe I used was fantastic and can be found at the following link:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-7419-Extra-Special-Buttercream-Icing-Recipe.html
It was light, smooth, and creamy. I flavored it with orange Lorann oil. I thought it was amazing. HTH Good Luck!
My recipe is 1c crisco, 1tsp salt, 2 tsp van extract beat until creamy then add 1/2 cup water and 6c 10x. I appreciate the help and will definitely check out the links.
And as for coloring I do only use the gel colorings, thats why I was so confused on the seperation!!
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