Help Please. I'm a self taught cake decorater and the last cake I made, my buttercream recipe was hideous!! It's a recipe I got from here and unfortunately can't figure out which one it was to give a name to it. But the ingredients are: 1c. butter 1 c. shortening, 4 T meringue powder, 1 3/4 tsp. vanilla, 1/16th tsp salt, 2# PS and 5 - 8 T milk. I've used the same recipe twice before and it worked fine and tasted great!! But this last time it simpky would not spread smoothly at all!! Not for my crumb coat nor my top coat. The frosting was simply too sticky and would grab itself when I would go to smooth and pull it off! Adjusted the milk and the amount of PS and still not much luck. I was ready to pitch my poor cake out the back door!!

Please, can you all suggest a better recipe or maybe tell me what I might have done wrong? A couple of us agreed that the weather was a little bizarre that day, maybe a little humid.
Also, any tips on a successful way to smooth my frosting??

Thank you all so much! Regardless of how lousey my frosting did, the cake tasted great and the subject matter made up for the looks!!

I use Indydebi's buttercream receipe. It's very good and crust extremely well. Sugarshack's buttercream always gets rave reviews but I've never made it.

I love Indydebi's recipe, too. It's easy to work with, and stands up to travel and heat. Here's a link.

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6992/indydebis-crisco-based-buttercream-icing

(someday, when I find some hi-ratio shortening, I would like to try SugarShack's recipe, too.)

Switch from criscocream to a true buttercream, such as IMBC or SMBC. No need to adjust the consistency of the icing for any application. It smoothes easily without having to deal with crusting, paper towels or parchment. And it tastes soooooo much better!