Hi!  I use butter in my BC and bought the Wilton white-white food coloring to color the icing white.  However, it only states to use a 'small amount' and I'm not sure how much that is.  I used it last week and my poor white icing looked more like plaster!  I must also mention that I did us a hi-ratio shortening for the first time. 

Does anyone know how much to use and was it the coloring or the shortening that made the icing look like plaster?

Thanks so much!

Just bumping myself!

Another question though.......I used 50% butter and 50% hi ratio shortening for the BC and white food coloring.  The BC did not have a nice smooth finish, it had a lot of shallow pits in it and looked rather like plaster. 

Any ideas on the cause?

thanks!

The texture change is due to the white-white (which is just titanium dioxide if I recall rightly). Some people cancel out the yellow in icing with a tiny dot of violet food colouring, you could try that. Or, use all shortening in your icing and bump up the flavour with clear extracts.

i think the shallow pits are caused from over mixing the frosting