Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me. I've PM's Sharon but I know she probably gets slammed with questions.

I love her icing, but lately have had a small problem. When I scrape off the excess icing and put it back in my bowl, that icing gets some little hard pieces. I'm assuming its from the heat of the bench scraper melting the shortening a bit?? I can usually mix it by hand and get most of them, but I find I'm using it for the filling of the cake. I hate to waste all of that wonderful icing. Any ideas or suggestions? Has this happened to anyone else?

2nd question- I'm going to make the chocolate version. Everything I've found says she doesn't measure the cocoa. I'm doing a 6qt version. Does anyone know a good starting point? (1/2 cup, cup?)

Thanks in advance!

sweetpea1972- I'd say 1/2cup of cocoa would be a good starting point IMO, you can always add more till you get the taste your looking for.

Could your 'little hard pieces' be the icing beginning to crust? personally when I ice a cake (crumb coat or final coat) I fill a bowl with the amount I'll need, then cover the unused B/C, I never scrap back into the main icing bowl. HTH

I use 1 cup of cocoa in a much smaller recipe . I'm not sure when Sharon adds the cocoa but to prevent brown dust in the air, I add it to the butter & shortening before adding the PS.

I was thinking about a cup as well. I want to add the cocoa when creaming the shortening or its not speckled, so I want to get as close as I can at the beginning.
Thanks for the advice!

Update:

I added about 2 cups of cocoa to the shortening mix. The taste and color were great but it made the BIGGEST mess! I even took out some of the PS to compensate. My mixer really struggled with it and it didn't get same super smooth consistency.

Sharon- any tips????

ok, let's see:

1) when I ice a cake, the extra I scrape off the sides and top to not go back into the icing bowl; they go into another bowl. It is normal for it to get kinda crusty and airy. I save that and re-use it for fillings and borders. I guess you could potentially save enough of that excess to refill the mixer bowl and re-mix it, but I never do, I just use it for other stuff.

2) Sorry that I do not have exact measurements for the choc, but here is what i do: cream the fats, then dump in the cocoa till dark brown ( maybe one cup?... maybe two?) then i add coofee creamer liquid and sugar, alternating both. It will be stiffer than the white BC... so you can add less ps or add more liquid....

hope that helps some!

Sharon,

Thanks so much for responding. My icing consistency has always changed while icing (turning fluffier) but its just recently that I've noticed the little chunks. They are soft and I can smoosh them but I wasn't sure why.

I'll have to try your directions for the chocolate next time. I think I had the right idea, but didn't alternate the liquid and ps.

Thanks again for all of your expertise!

not sure about the chunks either, but if they smoosh out I would not worry about it. use all that stuff for filling and piping....