to expect my buttercream not to curdle

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I'm trying to cut costs by using marj instead of ridiculously expensive butter, but the icing just turns to a wet curdled mess and looks utterly gross and unusable. My sister says she has never made butter icing with butter and always uses marj. Why won't it work? I've tried the soft stuff, and also the hard baking fat stuff, but both failed. Yuck. Any advice?

How are you mixing it? And in what proportions? And what type of sugar are you using?

Very interested in this, as two of my DC are dairy intollerant. I never seem to manage to get butter cream right. It tastes good, but doesn't look amazing.

Half fat to icing sugar so 2oz of fat, 4oz of sugar. Just normal icing sugar. I use a stand mixer. When I use butter it works just fine. Apparently butter is going up by 30p soon! Help.

Apparently you can use Trex but that sounds a bit gross. I tried Tesco baking fat (hard block like butter) and baking spread (in a tub like ice cream). Both failed

baking fat is for pastry, as is trex... you cant use it to make buttercream..

the clue is in the name.. BUTTERcream.

Butter icing made with marg is never going to be nice. You can but basic stuff from somewhere like aldi for about a pound. I believe you can freeze it if you have any left over too. I never use butter to make the cake though, I use vitalite as I too have dc with dairy issues.

But it will taste horrible with margarine! And butter is only 90 cents where I live and the UK is cheaper for food. Surely you can get butter for about 80p?

A pack of butter is about £1.50 here Baroness.

I've frozen buttercream and it's always been fine. Just defrost and give it a good beat before you use it.

Surely someone out there has had success with marj? How come my sister has managed for 30 years and I can't? Weird. Hm, I was a butter purist too but it's just so expensive so I thought I'd experiment.

I too thought the Trex thing sounded gross. Apparently people use it for wedding cakes as the icing ends up whaiter then whaite. Yuck.

I use Tesco Value butter for mine. It tastes just as yummy and costs less than a quid.

I use stork margarine for my butter icing and it's nice. You just need to use loads of icing sugar. You know it's right when the buttercream starts to go quite stiff.

I beat it by hand, it's a good workout.

98p is the cheapest. Tesco value. I rang Dairy Crest (thought I'd try and get it from the source) and they offered it to me for 95p, but said it's going to go up very soon.

Lidl sell unsalted butter for about 80p. I use the following recipe - enough for about 24 cupcakes so you might want to fiddle with the quantities:

200g butter softened
200g full fat cream cheese
500g icing sugar

Beat sugar & butter together until fluffy.

Beat cheese separately & then gradually add to sugar & butter, beating all the time.

If you don't want to use butter then you could try the Pure dairy free spreads, but you would still have the issue of using cheese though...

You could try using Stork, as that comes in blocks almost the same texture as butter.

The problem with margarine is possibly that it is too soft.. could you add more sugar perhaps?

I would also be put off by the fact that margarines contain transfats and would rather pay the extra for decent butter or do without.

Do you use the Stork that comes in a tub Kasterborous?

Ooh Lidl for 80p sounds promising.

I'm all for saving money but thats a step too far for me. .

Saying that I would guess that you need a higher ratio of sugar if using marg and the marg is softer already, maybe?

Yes I use the one that comes in a tub. It's useful because I can use it in the cake mixture then also use it for buttercream.

I soften it a bit in a bowl first just using a spoon then keep putting icing sugar in until it goes stiff. It does need quite a lot of icing sugar but I put a bit in at a time.

Have you tried the stork in the gold foil wrapper? (Think its already been mentioned by someone else). It costs 69p a packet

Butter cream is the crown on the cake - you don't scrimp on it - ever

yes mintyneb I tried the gold packet one. It curdled. I think I am just unlucky. Maybe it was something to do with the temperature.

I use sunflower margarine for buttercream because my daughter has a dairy allergy. It's never curdled on me, but food colouring separates out with it, which is annoying.

This thread should be illegal.