Icing Help???

Decorating By countrygal7782 Updated 17 May 2007 , 6:06am by JoanneK

countrygal7782 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
countrygal7782 Posted 16 May 2007 , 6:53am
post #1 of 6

Ok, I had this problem back at christmas time when I made some cakes and I just had it again so I have to try and find out what I am doing wrong. I was making a FBCT and since I made the icing up ahead of time I needed to thin it down a bit. I use an all shorting buttercream recipe so that my icing will be snow white. Anyway, back at christmas when I needed to thin out some icing I added some cold water to it but when I colored it, it looked like the icing seperated. There were a lot of swirls through it like the shorting and power sugar seperated. I thought it was the water that made it do this so this time when I went to do a FBCT and thined the icing I used melted shorting and it done the same thing when I added coloring.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? How do I fix it? How do you thin icing if water and shorting dont work? Any suggestions?

Thanks everyone

5 replies
lynda-bob Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
lynda-bob Posted 16 May 2007 , 1:48pm
post #2 of 6

I've never done a FBCT, but to thin down icing, I use milk. Once I used water and I noticed the separation that you are talking about. I use 2%-milk to make the buttercream and more 2% to thin it for crumb-coating. HTH icon_biggrin.gif

JRAE33 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
JRAE33 Posted 16 May 2007 , 1:59pm
post #3 of 6

Whenever I've used water or milk to thin, I noticed the seperation. Too much liquid, I think. I now use corn syrup, it thins the icing nicely and I've never had any seperation.

Now, I always make my icing for my FBCT when I'm ready to do the transfer so it's always just the right texture, so I can't say for sure corn syrup won't somehow affect the FBCT, but it works wonderfully in both BC and royal.

Jodie

DianeLM Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
DianeLM Posted 16 May 2007 , 2:10pm
post #4 of 6

Whenever I need soft icing, I don't even bother thinning it down for all the reasons stated. I just nuke it for a few seconds. It's soft enough to do the job, then it firms right back up to its original consistency.

countrygal7782 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
countrygal7782 Posted 17 May 2007 , 5:53am
post #5 of 6

Thank you all for the help, I will try some of your advice.

JoanneK Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
JoanneK Posted 17 May 2007 , 6:06am
post #6 of 6

I think I would add the color to the icing first then thin it down. I don't know why but I've never had this problem.

Quote by @%username% on %date%

%body%