Buttercream is my favourite kind of icing – it tastes so nice and looks so pretty. My top tip is to use a disposable icing bag – it’s so much easier than washing up!
1 A lot of people say they can’t get their buttercream right. I always use the standard two parts icing sugar to one part butter, so if you have 1kg of icing sugar, use 500g of unsalted butter and add a splash of milk. Put it all in a mixer and whip it – we whip our icing for 10–15 minutes on a high speed.
2 Here’s a cheap and easy tip for not getting icing sugar all over the kitchen. Dampen a tea towel and put it over your basin – it stops it going everywhere.
3 When flavouring buttercreams, try to use fresh flavourings – fresh lime zest in plain buttercream or a touch of Baileys in chocolate buttercream are amazing. If you’re adding a dry ingredient, you’ll need to balance it out with a touch more liquid (i.e. milk). If you’re using a wet flavouring, replace some of the milk with it so that you get the consistency right. Too runny and the icing won’t hold its shape when piped, too dry and it won’t come out of the icing bag without a struggle.
4 Now fill the icing bag. To start, cut the bottom of your bag to create a hole big enough for a star nozzle and insert the nozzle into the hole, being careful not to nick the bag on the way down or all the icing will squirt out as you pipe. Spoon your buttercream into the bag and clamp it at the top with a food clip to prevent it spilling out. Now you’re ready to pipe.
5 Always squeeze only from the top of the bag, using the hand you write with. Your spare hand should only hold the middle for support, to keep the bag upright – if you hold your bag at an angle, your icing will be wonky. Start piping from the outside and go round the cupcake one, two, three times, overlapping the previous row of piping slightly as you go. Finish it off with a full stop motion at the top, so you get that perfect finish, a kind of buttercream mountain look (see here).
6 To pipe roses, use the rose tip nozzle – it’s like the star nozzle but more closed. For these, you start from the inside and pipe out. I tend to pipe in the middle of the cupcake for 3–5 seconds to make a bud, then move out, keeping the icing flat. Move the nozzle in a round motion and as you do so make your circle wider. Make sure you keep the nozzle close to the previous piece of piping and you’ll get a perfect rose (see here). I think it’s the easiest one to do.
7 To use a palette knife to apply your icing, get a scoop of icing and pile it into the middle of your cupcake. Using the back of your palette knife, scrape down so that you form a dome shape on the cupcake. Then, still using the back of your knife, scoop round so you get a smooth, domed finish.
8 For a quick and easy finish, sprinkle some edible glitter over your iced cupcakes – I think it looks amazing. I put glitter on everything – it’s like a little dusting of love! Or, if you’re making cocktail cupcakes, for a mojito for instance, decorate with fresh mint and some sugar sand – it’s a really good effect and so easy to do too. We stick things such as straws, umbrellas and those plastic cocktail stirrers into our cocktail cupcakes – although obviously you’ll take all these out before you eat them!
We don’t buy pre-made decorations at Dixie’s, we use different cutters with ready-to-roll icing and we hand-model our figures. If we’re making specific flowers, we’ll use flower paste or Mexican modelling paste, as it holds delicate shapes better. For edible pastes, glue and glitter, see www.the-bakershop.co.uk.
1 Take a flat baking sheet and place a sheet of baking parchment on top – this will stop the decorations sticking to the sheet as they dry.
2 Take a ball of ready-to-roll fondant icing and add a teaspoon of CMC powder to it – it’s a hardening agent that will enable your decorations to harden as they dry (if you have time to make your decorations the day before, they will harden naturally and you won’t need it). Then dust your surface with icing sugar and roll ithe icing out to around 5mm thick.
3 Next, take your chosen cutter and push it down into the icing. Lift the cutter – if the decoration stays on the surface, carefully remove it with a palette knife; if it stays in the cutter, remove it gently with your finger – then place on the baking parchment. Do this until you have enough decorations (make a couple extra in case of breakages) and leave to air-dry overnight.
4 The following day, it’s time to make your decorations look even prettier. If you’ve made flowers, roll a small piece of yellow ready-to-roll icing into a ball and attach that to the centre of the flower. Or paint the tips of the flowers with edible glue and dip them into some edible glitter – this creates a really pretty look and it’s so simple. The decorations will keep in an airtight container, once completely dry, for about a month.
5 When it comes to using your decorations, if you are putting them on cupcakes, put them in place while the buttercream is still wet. If you’re putting them on to a fondant-iced cake, use a small dab of edible glue to stick them in place.
