I always do a crumb coat on my cakes, but, I was reading that I should "Thin" out my BC icing first then put it on... well, I did that last night and it didn't seem to work for me at all. Never seemed to "dry"... did I do something wrong? Any suggestions for me? Should I just use the BC icing "full strength?" Please share your wisdom!

I always do my from the icing I make, never do I thin out. Hope this helps.

do you know why some do thin it out? It seemed to make it more difficult for me.

i AM NOT SURE WHY THEY DO IT SEEMS TO WORK FINE FOR ME SO I NEVER TRIED TO THIN.

Thin is so it goes on easy and thin. I do mine with normal buttercream - but I ice with med thin anyway.

if too "thick" will grab cake and pull cake apart.'

for comparison.

crumb coat...the t-shirt under the clothes, so thin in thinkness too.

final icing...the clothes if not the nice heavy winter coat.

so, my next question would be if I were to thin it, by how much, I mean, how thin should it really be?

I am like the others...I do not thin mine out for my crumb coat.

The recipe we were given in Course 1 is a stiff consistency and by adding water/milk you get to a medium (borders) and with more you get the thin which is what should be used for icing. I am still learning but no matter how hard I try I still get crumbs in my icing layer. I do the crumb coat, let it sit to begin crusting and then put the top coat on. There must be a real trick to this. I have tried a real thin crumb coat to a thicker as will as a thicker top coat.

Any suggestions..

I don't thin mine out either, but I usually ice with a medium consistency.