My mom called me up asking me to make a cake for her coworker. They are having a shower for her (having twin boys) on Feb. 9th and the woman likes red velet with cream cheese frosting...of course my mom's favorite also!
Anyways, she needs it to feed at least 25 people, so I'm going to make a 2 layer, 13x9 size cake.

I decided to do a trial run of the cake and I tried out one of the recipes on CC for a crusting cream cheese frosting to cover and decorate the cake with.

The cream cheese was absolutely delicious and it was very, very thick and it would not spread around the outside of the cake. When I first filled it, I thinned it down a little and boy was it runny, kind of disappeared into the cake.

Of course I do not want to hand over a cake that just has the basic cream cheese frosting and very little decorating on it. Bought some cute things to put on it and because I love to use my tips, got some new ones for Christmas and would love to use them.

Here's a question: Can I ice the cake in cream cheese frosting and then just use buttercream to decorate and pipe the words? Or would that taste weird?

I find the trouble I have with the crusting cream cheese is that is so gummy! It's really tough to ice the red velvet and not have the icing turn pink. It is possible but to do it, it will need to be pretty thick. Often I torte the cake to fill it with cream cheese and then ice the cake in buttercream (I know, I cheat. The purists out there are screaming at their computers now, but I don't really like red velvet so it's okay with me.) But to answer your question, yes, you can pipe cream cheese. but as you learned, just a LITTLE goes a long way. I use heavy whipping cream instead of milk and that seems to help too. If you're just writing and a border, I would probably use buttercream.

Good luck!

I JUST tried icing a red velvet cake in cream cheese last night! The cream cheese recipe I used turned out INCREDIBLY runny - i have no idea why, because i have a picture of the cake it was supposed to look like, and no way would that have worked. So I decided in the future I will use delicious cream cheese for fillings and yes buttercream for the outside icing...unless I can somehow make cream cheese icing work for me...

I would suggest finding a different CC icing recipe...I have piped, colored, and done all kinds of stuff when I use cc....it's def harder to work with than BC, (stickier) but be patient and let it crust.
Also, I've started using an icing tip (it's ginormous!) to apply the icing. I also don't try to get cc icing perfectly smooth like BC - I work little swirls into it, if you know what i mean, like with the tip of the spatula, and make that part of the design...
my gardeners cake was cc icing - I worked the swirls or swoops into the design, and make it look ok without driving myself nuts trying to smooth it...I did a kind of pattern in my pink pirate one
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1344142
to cover my 'lack of smooth finish' Also, try the viva method, if you haven't already...
HTH!!!

Sounds like you thinned down the icing too much. You can ice in crch and deco w/ buttercream.

BTW, a single layer 9x13 gives 25 1"x2"x4" servings; a double layer gives 50 servings. If that doesn't sound like a large enough serving, remember that it is 8 cubic inches of cake, plenty for one person, especially of a rich cake like RV w/ CRCH!

@djs--what cream cheese icing recipe did you use on your pirate cake? It is very nice and smooth. Would you be willing to share the recipe with me?

Thanks

First off, I want to say thank you to all that gave me advice and recipes for this project. I appreciate it.

Second, I talked my mom out of cream cheese and red velvet. This makes it a little easier on me. Why little instead of big you ask???

I am now asked to do a cake with a Betty Boop theme! A complete change from a regular cutesy boy shower cake to Betty Boop!!! How in the world am I going to do this?

I told my mom that I've never made a figure out of fondant or gumpaste. If I am going to put a figure of her on the cake, I told her that it would come from a party store! Black, White and red icing also. Geez louise what did I get myself into here! This should be fun.

[/quote]I've had good luck with this recipe for years:

2 pounds powdered sugar
1 stick butter, room temp
8 ounces cream cheese, room temp
2 tablspoons cold sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat the cream cheese and butter until well blended. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and mix just until smooth. Mix in the sour cream.

I've found that overbeating CC icing makes the texture softer.[/quote]

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Jeff,
Is this crusting? Do you get it smooth like buttercream?