Blend butter in mixer, add vanilla and salt.

Slowly add the confectioner's sugar.

Add the vegetable shortening (thick white substance in a can).

Add cream or milk.

Add a small amount of food coloring to get desired shade.

You'll need to add vegetable oil to stiffen the buttercream. The more shortening you add, the stiffer the buttercream will be. However, be careful. When I first made this crusted buttercream frosting, I used equal parts butter to shortening. Gotta tell you, the frosting tasted too much like oil. So, I cut the original shortening requirement back by half.

I found that 1 cup butter to 1/2 cup shortening produced crusted buttercream that was perfectly stiff enough to work with and I could not taste the shortening.