Icing a cake?

Question

How come whenever I ice a cake little pieces of the cake come off in my icing? So now my white icing has brown specs everywhere. HELP!!

Answer 1

Spread a thin layer of icing all over the cake and refigerate it or freeze it until it is set, about an hour or so (in culinary terms, this is called a 'crumb coat'). When it is set, ice the cake as you normally would, and you'll find your icing troubles gone forever.

Answer 2

Most likely, the cake is still too warm for you to ice it if it is crumbling into your icing. Allow it to cool at least two hours before trying to ice it.
Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot you can do to get the cake specks out of the icing now. That would take forever. You only alternative (and its not a good one) would be to let the cake stand for a while then try to put another laying of icing on top to cover the imperfections. Here, you run the risk of making the cake too sweet and too heavy.
In the future, let the cake cool. You might also make sure you are icing with a light touch (ie - not digging into the cake) and you may also want to have a cup of cold water handy...you dip the icing knife into the cold water if it's not going on smoothly.
Good luck!

Answer 3

Make sure your icing is whipped and not too stiff. Gently dust off any loose crumbs, and apply a very thin layer of icing to the sides, to seal what you couldn't brush off. Then try icing the entire cake after cleaning your knife/spatula. This usually works for me. Good luck

Answer 4

Here's a professional tip; Buy a jar of apple jelly, melt it in a saucepan and using a pastry brush, brush it all over your cake, before icing it. This will seal the cake's surface and you won't get crumbs in your icing.

Also, spread your icing one way only. Don't go over it again, to ice another portion of the cake.

Answer 5

Using a pastry brush to 'brush off' extra crumbs first is helpful before icing. THEN, using ONE THIN LAYER of icing to 'trap the remnant crumbs' is helpful, then let it set.

THEN GO for your thick layers of icing and you won't have crumbs in it anymore! :)

But to fix a cake problem where you have crumbs in it (and have no more icing or can't make more, because you've already put it on thick).... I used to do a 'quick fix' by covering the cake in nuts, coconut and/or decorative candies, or grated chocolate.

I'm sure it will taste great, no matter how it looks!

Answer 6

In addition to the already great answers....if you don't have time to do a crumb coat, make sure you have plenty of frosting on your spatula and never let your spatula touch the surface of the cake.

Answer 7

before you put icing on it let it cool off for at least 30 mins