Hello,

I am so loving this website and it truly is addictive! I was hoping for some insight into why my frosting has not been "sticking" to my cake? The last two days I have had problems with the frosting rolling right off of the cake and getting crumbs in it which is crumby, lol. Here are the recipes for each:

Cake-- Duncan Hines cake mix
4 large eggs
3.5 oz instant pudding
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
Frosting- 2 lbs of conf. sugar
1 stick of crisco
1 stick of unsalted sweet cream butter
1 tbsp of vanilla extract
water added by consistancy of frosing

I have never had this problem before with these two recipes. The only change is I used water instead of milk on the frosting-- is that why it is doing this?

Smiles,

Val

I have read that if your Crisco is the trans-fat free kind and you use water, you might have problems. I'd try milk, half-n-half or whipping cream (which is what I use). There's enough sugar that you don't have to worry about refrigerating an iced cake.

Thank you, that makes perfect sense. I was using the water instead of milk because the fridge is full and I was concerned about spoilage. It is good to know that about the sugar.

I use a mixture of Chrisco, Powdered sugar and milk. I add a bit of Corn syrup, for some reason it creams the frosting and cuts the sugar taste.

I don't refrigerate it at all and it holds just fine. Sugar is kinda a preservative. Any left overs I do refrig. and have kept it for a week with no problem.

I only use water in my icing recipe (my recipe also uses all crisco, no butter or margarine) and I've never had a problem. Is your icing too thick? Are you crumb coating your cake first before putting the final coat of icing on?

The only time I've had that problem it was when my icing was too thick/dry (too much sugar). I thinned it down just a bit and it stuck just fine.
Good luck!

I've used all-crisco buttercream with water forever. Recently, it has been separating and sliding off cakes on me. I tried using a 50/50 water powdered creamer (per Shugarshack's recipe), and the problem has cleared up.

So, IMO the problem is the new Crisco formula with the water... Try milk or non-dairy creamer in place of the water and see what you get.

You could try sugarshack's method, instead of using water or milk (which will spoil if left out to long) Use a cup of coffee mate mixed with a cup of boiling water. You can use that as your liquid and it keeps in the fridge for quite a while! HTH!!

You are perfectly safe to use milk in your frosting. It can be left out on your kitchen counter for weeks. It does not spoil because of the sugar.

Sugar does amazing things! Ganache can be left out at RT when the ratio of milk to sugar is right. Same thing with cream cheese frostings (some of these can be left out, not all). But again, it depends on the ratio of sugar to dairy.

Remember, BC is 2 lbs of sugar to 2 t. milk. Seriously, you have nothing to worry about. Indydebi leaves hers sitting out for weeks.

sounds to me like you have too much sugar in your recipe. I've had that problem with my chocolate frosting recipe because it's a little to thin and sometimes I add TOO much sugar and then it won't stick to the cake. I use only 1 lb of sugar for that much butter crisco and liquid. Sometimes I use corn syrup too. Like someone mentioned, it makes it smoother and creamier

I am having problems with my frosting sticking to the cake also. I use all butter and whole milk or cream. I never had this problem before. Any suggestions