My instructor (Course 1) began our first class showing us how to make bc icing and the diffrent consistencies. To begin it becomes the thick ,then thinned to medium, and thinned again to thin. I know you need to ice the cake first with thin icing, and then to decorate with medium to thick consistencies. Once you have already thinned it down , how do you build it back up to color with it and decorate? This may be too confusing or I just wasn't understanding the process..Also, the wilton bc recipe was multiplied by 2 just to cover and decorate 1 -8"round double layer cake. How do you know how much you need to cover twice or more the size of cake?

you will probably want to just set aside some of the thicker consistencies BEFORE thinning down to ice the cake. otherwise, you will have to add sugar to the thinned icing, which is fine, but can get a little confusing. there are charts on the wilton site about how much frosting you need for each size cake.

You don't have to thin the frosting for the crumb coat; merely apply a thin coat. Wait about 10 minutes for it to set, then apply the last coat. If you want to add color, do the entire batch before you do the crumb coat. If you prefer to make the crumb coat thinner, you can take a cup or so of the regular (colored) frosting and thin it down with water. Wilton books have charts showing how much frosting is needed for each size cake. Hope this helps.

When you crumb coat your cake, you don't have to use a thin icing, you just apply a thin layer of icing to seal in the crumbs. But like lasidus1 said, set some thick icing aside if you have to thin some down for other decorations.

Thank you all very much. It just seems a little confusing if you dont know how much of what consistency your expect you'll need to use for what decorations. I just need more hands on experince I know!

HI there.

I teach the classes and I reccomend that you should crumb coat with thin icing. Once you become more familiar with your cakes and icing, then you can do it without thinning it down. The best way is to take out a cup or so, thin it down without effecting the whole batch.

If you thin too much, you can stiffen up with more powered sugar or some meringue powder. you do need to watch using the meringue though, I can make you icing too stiff.

Hope this helps.

that's what I always did.......the recipe itself always made 3 cups...so I would take out a cup of it while it was thick...then I had two cups remaining, and the recipe for medium says to add what is it another Tbsp. of water, to two cups to get medium....and then another to get thin?? That's what I used to do. It's way too hard to frost the cake with it as thick as that frosting is!!! The icing won't even adhere to the sides of the cake..you're better off thinning it..the instructors know what they're talking about!!!!!

If your not sure how much your going to need just make two batches of it. I would make two batches when I was taking the class, the first one I would make thin for icing the cake, and the second batch I would take out how ever much stiff consistency I would need, then thin down what was left to medium. You can always keep any extra you have and use it the following week to go towards what you need for class.

I was just wondering ......where on the Wilton site can you find the icing amounts, like lsawyer said?

I've looked through almost every tab except for their Stationary Tab for the info and can't find it

Can anyone post a link directly to the chart?

Thank you for your help.

Here's the link:
http://www.wilton.com/cake/cakeprep/baking/times/party_2inch.cfm

Thank you so very much, aupekkle.