I'm making a rose cake (thank you iambaker.blogspot.com) for a baby shower on Saturday. I'm considering making it with SMBC, though I typically use a powdered sugar based buttercream. I think the shimmery appearance and lightness would be gorgeous for this type of cake. I'm concerned that the SMBC may not hold up well until Saturday, or that it may be too soft for piping. I've read that refrigerating it will make it very hard and not as pleasing to eat. Any suggestions, or comments from previous experience would be great. Also, do you recommend the 1, 2, 3 ratio for SMBC? Thanks everyone!
I have been using SMBC for the last couple cakes. I am in love with the taste, although I have not used it to decorate, I just used it to ice the cakes and then cover in fondant so I'm not sure how the rose will hold up. From what I hear it is supposed to hold up very well. Also if you put it in the fridge it will get hard just like a stick of butter but if you set it out it will thaw and soften back up no problem. Good luck 
I made roses on cupcake a while ago and while they were not quite as stiff as crusting buttercream, they still had a nice edge. One thing I would do is fill two bags and when you notice one getting soft, put it in cool place and use the back up and vice versa. I found that it was melting the longer I held it...and my hands are cold.
I know when I frosted a cake with SMBC for an outside party, it was going to be in the low 80s. I made sure I refrigerated the cake the night before and put it out under the tent about an hour or so before people were going to eat. After an hour the frosting was soft and it actually held up for around 3 hours....that's when it was finished off hehe!
As far as the ratios, I don't have much info on that. I found a quote on a thread that assessed it nicely though.
FromScratchSF - I got the chance to use your recipe here. I usually use the ratio of 1:2:3 when I make SMBC But yesterday I made some SMBC using this recipe here. I already use the same process you use, so the only difference are the ratios. Because I got two different results I thought I would share it here.
1. Your meringue using your ratios in this recipe is lighter and fluffier than the 1:2:3 meringue (calling it my meringue from now on). I would say that my meringue comes out like 7-minute frosting. Mine is very marshmallow like in look (think marshmallow fluff without being so sticky, but still a little sticky), stiffer, shinier and sweeter. It takes a lot longer to cool down than your meringue did. I liked that about your meringue.
3. Even though your SMBC uses less butter than mine, yours tasted buttier at first. My DD called it sugar butter. It is not a bad thing and this was before I added any other flavoring. Once I added some vanilla bean paste for one batch and some orange extract for another batch, the butter taste was not existent. But my SMBC does not have that distinctive butter taste. No wonder I couldn't understand what others meant by a butter taste. I did a taste test on day 2 and the butter taste is definitely nonexistent. I use the highest quality butter I can find. I think you have said before that you use an Amish brand of organic, which I wish I could get. so that maybe why you don't get that butterier taste when you make it.
4. Interestingly, again though yours use less butter, the resultant SMBC before the flavoring was also more yellow in color than mine. I get a slight ivory tint. Your SMBC was definitely yellow when I was done. I added orange food coloring to the orange flavored SMBC It is a nice pastel shade of orange. I was conservative in the amount of food coloring I added. I wasn't going for bright orange, just a tint to give the idea of orange flavor.
5. The two SMBCs are about the same consistency almost. My SMBC might be slightly lighter, for lack of a better word, than yours. Which again is weird given the heavier meringue my ratio produces. I hate to use the word stable, because both SMBCs are stable, but yours was a tad "thicker" and richer consistency. Again, strange because it uses less butter in the overall ratio of ingredients. But oh well, they both are good!
6. Yours took a lot longer to go through the science osmosis to become SMBC It did take the amount of time you stated, if not longer. My meringue converted to SMBC sooner. But that makes no difference in the final outcome. I mention it in case someone is doing research and this comes up.
I will probably use the two different ones interchangeably. There is no difference in flavor between the two now that the flavoring has been added. But I think yours may hold up to flower piping a little bit better than mine. I have yet to try to make a flower out of SMBC like a rose. I think I will have to try now that I said that. I just get the feeling that yours would work better. Which again is weird given the lighter meringue you get to start with and mine being different.
Here's the whole link : http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=711181&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=30
I've piped cupcakes with SMBC many times. They pipe just fine. It is softer than my regular buttercream, but it holds form just fine as long as it doesn't get too hot.
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