floppy simple butter cream

[axeldbljumps]

How do I get a simple buttercream stiff enough to pipe roses without them drooping? When I add more p. sugar the icing separates before it is thick enough to pipe. Any help out there?

[m brown]

what is your recipe?
some times roses are made with a shortening bc for stability.
you can also try to have the bc cool for piping.

[axeldbljumps]

m brown, my recipe uses a ratio of 1:2 butter and shortening. Maybe I should change that ratio? I thought of piping the bc cold. I will try that now with your confirmation. Thanks!!

[Eeyore]

I rarely get to pipe flowers any more, but what I would always do is use about a 1/3 to 2/3 fat ratio. I think buttercream should have more butter than shortening to really taste good. So if I was going to be piping flowers on a cake (esp. in hot weather) I would just whip up some shorten. with 10x and add cold water until it was the perfect consistancy. However, if the cake was to have alot of flowers I would make do with the regular butter cream or just blend in a little more shortening because I didn't want people to be eating alot of shortening. yeck.

eeyore