Cake icing

smelltheglove

Hi all, havent been in this section before but was hoping for a little help. Over the last few years I have mastered my chocolate cake. Last year I decided to make a novelty cake for a birthday, the icing was a nightmare for me and havent tried it since. Its my little girls birthday next week so I decided to give it another go.

Anyway I have gone through loads of instructions etc, I know I should ice in stages, I will be going 2 ties with different colours so I will ice each individually and then put together. I was hoping somebody will tell me which icing to use though? Last time I tried to make butter cream and it was a disaster so I went with gem icing powder afair, but which is really the best?

Thanks in advance.

kerash

I'd go with royal icing or roll on depending on how you're decorating?

ooh if it's chocolate icing you want try this http://www.ivillage.co.uk/food/whoscooking/articles/0,,182583_176880-2,00.html
I've made the nigella recipe several times and it's my favourite chocolate cake the icing is great

tootired

I've never iced with royal icing but use roll out icing all the time.

I always use buttercream under the royal icing.

But first of all refridgerate your cake for a few hours - this will make it easier to put on the buttercream.

Then apply buttercream as evenly and smoothly as you can.

Let it set - then when it's hard I even out the finish - so all the bumps and uneven lines are gone. I usually use a sharp kife to help with this.

Let the buttercream set again.

Roll out the roll out icing and cover - don't roll the icing too thin as this make it very difficult to cover a cake without pleats or creases. About 5mm thick is a good thickness.

If you google how to ice a sponge cake there's bound to be loads of videos and how to tutorials.

Good luck and hope it helps

seabre

I have a fab recipe for carrot cake muffins - it really is the best I've ever tried, My problem is however every time I try to make the "Orange flavoured cream cheese frosting " I cannot get it right. Its so frustrating, I end up adding a little more juice, butter, cream cheese .... and inevitably end up with far too much frosting that I'm not entirely happy with anyway aaaaargghhhh!!!!!

tootired

I had this problem too for ages but finally hit upon a cream cheese frosting that worked.

This is the very easy recipe.

8oz full fat cream cheese - use Philadelphia or Tesco own brand not Lidl or Aldi as the latter 2 make the frosting too runny

2oz butter at room temperature

2oz sieved icing sugar

Zest of whatever citrus fruit you want to use

Beat the butter, zest and icing sugar together until it is a lot paler in colour, then mix in cream cheese until well combined. Put on cake.

I find for cream cheese icing the more icing sugar in the recipe the runnier the icing is.

Hope this helps

seabre

Ah - Thankyou, your post makes a lot of sense - I'll give this a go this weekend see how I get on, Thanks again.

smelltheglove

Well I made my tester cake, this time I added 2 bars of melted chocolate into the mixture with half a cup of water and it was gorgeous. Vanilla buttercream, pink on the outside, as the little one wanted a pink cake. I have to say it was goreous, I say was because it was quickly devoured but the icing did not look great. I am going to try it again with the roll out icing.