Buttercream Frosting Cake Decorating Tips

Are you tired of using the same old chocolate or vanilla frosting? Then consider using buttercream frosting instead. This type of frosting is soft, creamy and quite tasty; it’s also easy to spread, textured and/or piped. Buttercream icing is made of butter or shortening, a splash of milk and confectioner’s sugar, which gives it a palette of exhilarating colors. Want to learn a little more about how to make a buttercream icing cake? Then use the following cake decorating tips that uses buttercream frosting.

Tip 1 – Make and Store Your Buttercream Frosting

You always have the option to make your frosting from scratch; however, time doesn’t always allow for such things. Instead, use quality mixes or ready-made icing. You don’t have to purchase tubs of icing; instead purchase smaller tubes of the pre-colored frosting to do your cake decorating.

Special Cake Decorating Tip: Once you’ve got your frosting, it can be stored for up to two weeks in the refrigerator in a sealed container. Before you start to use any stored frosting, don’t forget rewhip it.

Tip 2 – Getting The Consistency Right

Be sure to make adjustments to the frosting’s consistency based on the kind of cake decorating project you have. If you want thin icing, add either one of these three ingredients: milk, light corn syrup or water. However, if you want a stiff consistency, add sugar to the concoction. You’ll notice, as you get more experience, what kind of consistency you have based on the temperature, humidity and ingredients.

Here are some ideas to use with the different consistencies:

Medium Frosting – Cake covering, borders, stars, and flowers.

Stiff Frosting – You want stiff frosting for roses or other items that you want to have stand up. If you want string work on your cake, add a touch of light corn syrup to your frosting. This gives it a greater suppleness.

Thin Frosting – If you want to add vines and leaves or add writing on the cake, you’ll need to use some thin frosting.

When you want a colored buttercream icing, use the food coloring paste or gel of your choice. If you use the liquid food coloring, it will thin out your icing. Keep in mind that the gels and paste come in a wide array of colors. If you don’t know where to go, consider a craft and/or cake decorating store.

Make sure to add the color in minute amounts. While you can always darken your icing, lighting it back up is much more difficult.  To control the quantity, use a toothpick and dip it into the color, then allow it to drip, or shake it, into your icing.

Once you’ve gotten to the shade of icing near to what you want, stop. Time will darken the icing, usually within two to three hours.

Special cake decorating tip – Consider experimenting with your colors. Do this by brushing a minute amount of gel near the bottom of the piping bag.  This will add streaks to the icing as it is piped.

If you really want to experiment, mix up two shades of frosting in the bag. This allows you to have borders and/or flowers with two-tones.

When you’re ready to do some baking but are unsure what kind of design to do, this is when you need some inspiration. Luckily, there are tons of resources available to give you this inspiration for both a cake color and theme. Your inspiration can come from the occasion you’re celebrating, the personality of the person it’s being designed for, music, movies, magazines and artwork. Consider doing some vibrant frosting colors on your cake to make it stand out.

Tip 5 – Additional Resources

Want more cake decorating tips? Then consider joining a cake decorating class or looking for online courses. You can also look for great cake decorating ideas at your local library or bookstore. There are certainly a wide range of places you can turn to find that essential cake decorating tip which makes all the difference.

Once you do this, put your information at work and start baking up some sweet, unique treats.

Image source: Flickr users 'benjoythecake' and 'kimberlykv'