Piping 101-Icing Consistency Basics
If the consistency of your icing is not right, your decorations will not be right either. Just a few drops of liquid can make a great deal of difference in your decorating results. Many factors can affect your icing consistency, such as humidity, temperature, ingredients and equipment. You may need to try using different icing consistencies when decorating to determine what works for you. If you are having trouble creating the decorations you want and you feel your icing is too thin, add a little more icing sugar; if you feel your icing is too thick, add a little more liquid.
Stiff Icing
Stiff icing is used for decorations such as flowers with upright petals, like roses, carnations and sweet peas. Stiff icing also creates figure piping and stringwork. If icing is not stiff enough, flower petals will droop. If icing cracks when piped out, icing is probably too stiff. Add light corn syrup to icing used for stringwork to give strings greater elasticity so they will not break.
Medium Icing
Medium icing is used for decorations such as stars, borders and flowers with flat petals. If the icing is too stiff or too thin, you will not get the uniformity that characterizes these decorations. Medium to thin icing is used for icing your cake. Add water or milk to your icing recipe to achieve the correct consistency.
Thin Icing
Thin icing is used for decorations such as printing and writing, vines and leaves. Leaves will be pointier, vines will not break and writing will flow easily if you add 1-2 teaspoons light corn syrup to each cup of icing.
Common Icings Used for Piping
Royal Icing
This icing is also called decorators icing. It is similar to flat icing but is much thicker and is made with egg whites which make it hard and brittle when dry. It is used almost exclusively for decorative work. Royal icing can be made with meringue powder rather than fresh eggs. Many feel that this is a safer option than using raw egg.
Basic Buttercream
Buttercream icing is light and smooth and made of fat and sugar. They may also contain eggs to increase their lightness. Buttercream icings are easily flavoured and coloured. A good quality buttercream should be made with unsalted butter (sweet butter). Buttercream icings are less stable than other icings as the butter can melt easily. There are three types of common buttercream icings-Italian, French and Swiss. Each has a different preparation method.
Bakery Icing
Similar to a basic buttercream, this icing uses shortening rather than butter and is easier for a beginning baker to use when practicing piping as it does not melt easily.