Easy Icing Recipes for
Cake Frosting and Decorating
Choosing the right icing
recipes for your cakes is a matter of
taste and function. Some frosting recipes work better for covering the
outside of the cake than for decoration.
Another consideration is the
temperature. Some won't hold up under warm
weather conditions.
Also,consider the audience when making your selection. Some adults
consider buttercream too sweet, yet kids most kids love it.
Decorations, like roses,require a firm consistency.
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Buttercream Icing Recipe
- Very sweet; good for kids; holds up in warm weather; use to frost
cake or pipe decorations.
Chocolate Frosting
- Good for frosting and piping,appeals to most.
Fondant -
very sweet; great for covering cakes & creating dramatic
decorations;preserves cake freshness.
Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
- Great for carrot cake, cheesecake and red velvet cake, can be used
for simple piping.
Peanut Butter Icing
- scrumptious,peanut-flavored icing that doubles as chocolate-covered
peanut butter balls recipe.
Royal Icing
- Very sweet; used to create all decorations and to cover
boards;hardens and lasts for months.
Chocolate Ganache
- appeals to most, glossy cake covering.
Boiled Icing
- soft,fluffy icing made from egg whites and sugar syrup. Has a
marshmallow flavor and texture.
Fudge Cake Icing
- 2 delicious,rich fudge icing recipes. Ideal for chocolate cakes and
cupcakes.
Whipped Cream
- perfect accompaniment to any cake. Both the traditional recipe and a
piping recipe.
Icing Cream
- A light, fluffy cross between whipped cream and icing that works both
for cake frosting and cake filling.
Gum Paste
- similar to fondant. The addition of gum tagacanth gives this icing
medium the flexibility to create beautiful icing flowers and figures.
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recipes
from other visitors this page.
Icing
recipes from our icing contest.
Icing
the Cake
When covering the outside of the cake, your best bet is to use icing
recipes that spread smoothly. If the icing is too thick, you will
create
crumbs and sometimes lift pieces of the cake right up.
Most icings can be thickened for piping by adding confectioners sugar
and thinned for spreading by adding milk.
When frosting the cake, glide a metal spatula back and forth on the
cake
to avoid lifting crumbs into the frosting. It can take a bit of
practice
to achieve a smooth finish.
The flawless cakes you see are often covered in royal icing. While
perfect looking, you may not want to bite into hard icing. You can come
pretty close to perfect with buttercream icing by using a baker's
trick:
- Place a cardboard round inside the ring of a springform pan
- the same
size as the layer was baked in.
- Ice all around the sides of the cake pan, about 1/4-inch
thick.
- Place the cake layer in the pan and place in the freezer
until firm.
- Put the pan on top of a cylinder, can, or bowl that is
smaller than
the pan.
- Use a blow dryer to warm all around the outside of the pan.
- Slide the sides of the springform pan down to reveal a
perfectly iced
cake.
Coloring Icing
Serious decorators choose paste or powder food coloring. Liquid food
color won't give you the intensity or the versatility of the other two.
It only takes a little dab of paste food coloring to go a long way, so
start with a dab.
You can always darken the color by adding more, but
if you add too much, you will need to add more icing to dilute the
color.
Your cake will look best if you stick to the same intensity for each
color you choose.
If you start with pastel shades, continue throughout
for your cake. If using deeper colors, maintain the brightness for all
your decorations.
Powdered icing color can also be used to paint the outside of a cake
that is covered in fondant. Once applied, however, you cannot remove
it.
You may prefer to paint a fondant applique and apply it to the
cake, so to avoid making a mistake you cannot fix.
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