Hi all, I have a salted caramel buttercream recipe that I love and want to use on my friend's wedding cake this weekend, but I need to get it as smooth as possible. It sounds like the best way to achieve a smooth buttercream is with the paper towel method on a crusting buttercream- is there any way to convert my recipe into a crusting version?

The recipe I use is:

http://www.madeinmelskitchen.com/2010/10/pumpkin-cupcakes-with-salted-caramel-buttercrea/

Is it as simple as adding meringue powder or increasing the powdered sugar? Thanks for your help!![/url]

The ratio of sugar has to be higher than the fat, then it will crust. Indydeb's recipe is like that and it crusts.

Your recipe, while it sounds delicious, is heavy on the fat and light on the sugar. The weight of the sugar is less than the weight of the flour. Add more PS. It will be a sweeter frosting, but it will also crust.

A good sugar to fat ratio would be 1 cup fat to 1lb of powder sugar. I know Indy's recipe has less fat in the ratio than that, but the 1 cup to 1lb has always worked for me.

In that recipe I would either decrease the butter or use a full 1lb of powder sugar (about 3.5ish cups) to see if that helped with the crusting issue.

Since the wedding is this weekend, that doesn't give you alot of time to play around with it though.

Good luck.