Do You Mix Your Buttercream Frostings By Hand Or With A Mixer?

[Sherry]

I find that when I make buttercream frostings I am better off taking the extra time needed to mix it by hand. It seems that every time I get in a hurry and go for the mixer my frosting gets too gooey and soft to stay on the cake. Then if I try to compensate by adding more dry ingredients it just doesn't work. It remains gooey and soft.
I tend to use it anyway when this happens, but I have to refrigerate the cake in order to keep the layers from sliding off one another.
This never happens, however, when I just take the time to mix it by hand; which, it seems, is tedious but foolproof.

 

[Rosyrain]

I use a hand mixer with controlled speed and my frosting comes out perfect everytime. I start out with a medium speed and then switch to low speed when it is about halfway mixed. Do you think the butter starts to melt a little while you are hand mixing?

 

[sorrowscall]

The kind of frosting I make differentiates, but I like to avoid using a mixer to mix things like frosting ingredients whenever it's possible. It might be less convenient, but if I'm not on a time crunch then I'll mix it myself without the use of a mixture; to me it just seems to come out better that way. However, if I need some icing and I need it quick, I'll go ahead and use the mixer. There have been a few times though, where I haven't been able to make certain icing how I like it without the use of a mixer; one example being strawberry.

 

[Rosyrain]

I use a hand mixer with a low speed to mix my frosting. My arm starts to hurt rather quickly when I am mixing things by hand. I find that as long as I do a good job controlling the speed, it turns out alrifht.

 

[juno]

I try to mix anything I possibly can by hand. Yesterday, I made Rugelach and the recipe stated to use a mixer, after a few minutes with my mixer I got my hand into it and it worked a lot better. After all, half these recipes originated in the old days when there was no mixer and hands were the best tools.