MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT MAKING BC WAS GOOD.. (SO I THOUGHT) . IT LOOKED GOOD AND TASTED GREAT.. BUT WHEN IT CAME TIME TO ICE THE CAKE IT NEVER CRUSTED OVER ... LEAVING ME UNABLE TO SMOOTH MY CAKE PROPERLY AND UNABLE TO PIPE AN IMAGE FROM TRANSFER PAPER!!

TIPS PLEASE !!

What recipe did you use. That would help us to know. Thanks

What recipe did you use?

Was your cake frozen?

I used the recipe from the Wilton decorating basics book:
1 cup shortening
7-8 tsp of milk/water
1lb confectioners sugar
1 tbls meringue powder (didnt use this)

the recipe didnt call for butter ... but I used 1 stick

The recipe you used has a lot of liquid in it. That makes it very soft. If you used the butter *in addition * to the shortening that is why it did not crust.

Here is a good crusting reicpe for you to try
2 cups butter
1 cup shortening
2 pounds powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons flavoring

Beat the butter and shortening about 5 minutes; add about 1/3 of the sugar and mix 3-5 minutes; add another 1/3 of the sugar, along with the flavoring and beat well; add least of sugar and mix on low speed for 5 minutes- until very creamy.

If you don't want that muc h icing on hand, then use
1 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 lb sugar
1 Tablespoon flavoring
Proceed with the same mixing instructions as above.

I'm pretty sure the meringue powder is what helps Wilton's BC to crust...

thanks for all the advice... I wont go wrong next time

Wilton has really pushed the notion that meringue powder is what makes b'cream crust. That is NOT SO. It is dried egg white w/lots of additives. It might help a *very little bit* but not enough to make that much difference in a recipe.
What makes icing crust is the ratio of sugar to fat. The less fat the more chance it will crust. I have used 0 transfat. It does make the icing softer and tend not to crust but again, just reduce the amount of fat by 1/4 cup and see how that does. Maybe you will need to reduce it by 1/2 cup until it is the way you want it.

Wilton's recipe is fine. It worked every time I used it (I don't use it any more.) It probably didn't work because you added butter. Maybe you should try to do it again following the instructions precisely to see if it works. HTH.

That's the Wilton recipe that is now in the Course books.

The 7-8 teaspoons of water if for a stiff consistency and would be slightly over 2 tablespoons of water. I follow the recipe that they had in the book before, which is 2 tablespoons of water for stiff, 3 tablespoons of water for med, and 4 tablespoons of water for thin.

If the butter was adding in addition to the 1 cup crisco, that will slow down the crusting. Next time add it in place of 1/2 cup of the crisco.

I've been using the non trans fat crisco for 4 years now with out a problem in crusting. In fact the icing I made in class this week crusted in less than 10 minutes.

I do still use the MP in my icing, because in my area with the heat and the humidity I have found it helps stabilize the icing. When I don't use it my icing acts odd and gets oily around the bottom edge.