I had to make frosting out of shortening only. The child is allergic to dairy so I could not use butter. I added Americolor (blue) and the frosting appears "speckled". Has this happened to anyone? It's like the frosting will not completely incorporate the gel color in it.

How do I make the color uniform?

Hi Tug,
This has happened to me one in a blue moon when I make frosting. I personally find it has more to do with the Powdered Sugar than the shortening because I always use all shortening and this only happens occasionally. For me when it happened. I let the frosting sit over night and the next, I was able to stir it and the color disappated correctly. I have switched from Crisco to a Hi-ratio shortening so maybe it's part of the whole Crisco no longer has trans fat problems. Let it sit for a while (room temp) and see if it will work itself out.

sillywabbitz
Thanks for the reassurance. It's going to sit overnight anyway, so I'll give it a good stir in the morning and hopefully it'll cooperate like you said.

I used the Dixie powdered sugar. Maybe I should go with another brand.

The couple of times it happened to me I had purchased the store brand. This is also the only time I ever ended up with gritty buttercream. I use C&H or Domino generally depending on what store I'm at but if Dixie has served you well in the past it may just be a bad batch.

Definitely agree with the above posts: hi-ratio + name brand PS (C&H, Domino, etc.) and also, sift the PS to distribute the 3% of corn starch in it.

Rae

Was the icing on the soft side and were you making a dark color?