Ok, so I had a request for an organic wedding cake. I charged appropriately (that stuff is expensive!), made the cake, and now have mixed feelings about the outcome.

Now, this is a first for me, never having worked with organic products, so flavor and consistency were different. I loved how the chocolate cake turned out. it was moist and delicious. so was the orange cake.

The organic buttercream frosting was an entirely different story. i used organic powdered sugar, sweet cream unsalted butter, crisco (she knew that would not be organic, but is vegetarian), and organic milk. First, the color looked like wall spackling. Second, the consistency was like wall spackling. Third, the flavor was like extremely sweet wall spackling.

Did I miss something while making this frosting? I added my vanilla, added some butter flavor (sshhh, don't tell!) and salt. this stuff was pretty gross.

I know she won't complain, as the cake and the fillings were wonderful, sampled them myself. but that frosting!

If anyone has a secret to making good organic buttercream, please fill me in. I have tasting in two weeks with a bride that wants organic, and i would like to able to accomodate her if i can.

I have a cookbook from a bakery in New York that is reported to be very popular among movie stars due to their vegan recipes and great taste, and since many of vegan recipes are organic, the icing recipies might be good - I haven't had a chance to use them yet. It's called Babycakes by Erin McKenna. If you want, PM me (so we don't infringe on copyright laws) and let me know what flavor you'd like to look at and I'll send it to you.

You could do a meringue buttercream, as long as she doesn't want vegan, only organic.

I'm intrigued by this problem you had... firstly organic shouldn't change anything too much except make the flavor a little bit richer, because all organic means is that the ingredients used to make the products are certified as having been grown with organic methods (or in the case of dairy, from cows that haven't been given hormones). i use organic milk and butter in mine, but use regular powdered sugar, so maybe that's where you're issue lies. i'd be curious to know what brand you used? i don't use crisco in my buttercream either, so it could be a combination of those two ingredients working against each other. have you tried making another batch but maybe reducing the amount of sugar to see what happens? i hope it works out for you!

I use almost all organic and natural ingredients and the only difference I notice is color. I find texture and taste amazing. I also don't use shortening, and, as BillaCakes, I use regular name brand powdered sugar.