Icing Problems
Does any one have an idea of what I can do? I'm having a problem with the icing keeping it stiff enough to do roses. 10 seconds after I start it is thinned again due to the heat in my hands. I have tried all kind of things from different bags to sticking my hands in ice but nothing works. I get it at the right stiffness and then 10 seconds later its soft again!! I don't know what to do?? Please help if any one knows what else I can try. Thanks so much for your help.
Tammi
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Deborah Wenn on
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Try adding a little gum tragacanth to it it makes it easier to mould and dries harder
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Permalink Reply by faith brandstetter on
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can you make it stiffer than you need? added benefit you'll be able to win hand wrestling comps. lol I also have hot hands but my roses don't break down.
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Permalink Reply by June Kowalczyk on
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What you could try Tammi is have on hand a bowl of ice in a shallow bowl with a cloth/small towel on top. Place your piping bag on that when using the other. That has worked for me. The ice cools the icing much faster than placing in the fridge. I don't have hot hands, but I was piping frills on a cake and it was early Oct & it was unusally hot for Oct. Not hot enough to put on the AC in the house. Same thing was happening, my icing was so soft, couldn't pipe. It came out like ooze. Thank goodness I had 2 of the same tip. So I googled & saw the idea I posted here. Also the meringue pwdr will help to keep your your rose stiff as well. Give it a try. Hope that helps. :o)
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Permalink Reply by Cyn on
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In teaching Wilton classes, I ran into that a lot this past year, but it turned out, for the majority of my students who had the trouble, that they put too much water/milk in their buttercream to begin with. Try making it with the minimum amount of liquid and letting it set a bit in a covered bowl, then, if it's still too stiff, add water by 1/2 tsp, stirring it in with a spatula, not the mixer, until you get it to just be pipable. If you whip too much air into your buttercream, it gets softer faster.
Awkward as it may sound, wearing a latex dishwashing glove (thePlaytex Living Glove is good) on your piping hand when piping can insulate the bag from your hot hand, too.
Also--don't over fill the bag. Use the "speedbag" method of filling several disposable bags with just a handful of your frosting, put a coupler in an empty bag and, cutting the tip off the frosting bag as if you had a tip in it, drop it down into the empty bag, inside the coupler and pipe away. If it gets soft, pull it out and set it on your ice bowl, and replace it with a fresh cool bag and continue piping.
This method makes for very easy changes when piping a lot of different colors using the same tip, too (such as those star-covered shaped cakes).
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Permalink Reply by tammi coleman on
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thank you everyone for the help, it really stinks that im having so much trouble making roses all my life i dreamed of making these beautiful wedding cakes and cant make a flower because my icing wont thicken /or stay thick. i will try these ideas and let you know how i make out thanks again for the help
June Kowalczyk said:What you could try Tammi is have on hand a bowl of ice in a shallow bowl with a cloth/small towel on top. Place your piping bag on that when using the other. That has worked for me. The ice cools the icing much faster than placing in the fridge. I don't have hot hands, but I was piping frills on a cake and it was early Oct & it was unusally hot for Oct. Not hot enough to put on the AC in the house. Same thing was happening, my icing was so soft, couldn't pipe. It came out like ooze. Thank goodness I had 2 of the same tip. So I googled & saw the idea I posted here. Also the meringue pwdr will help to keep your your rose stiff as well. Give it a try. Hope that helps. :o)
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i took the first 3 wiltons classes, the teacher there told me about the bowl of ice but it seems my hands spend more time in the bowl of ice then on the bag, i will try the glove i never thought of doing that and the teacher hasnt mentioned that to me thanks for the idea
tammi coleman said:thank you everyone for the help, it really stinks that im having so much trouble making roses all my life i dreamed of making these beautiful wedding cakes and cant make a flower because my icing wont thicken /or stay thick. i will try these ideas and let you know how i make out thanks again for the help
June Kowalczyk said:What you could try Tammi is have on hand a bowl of ice in a shallow bowl with a cloth/small towel on top. Place your piping bag on that when using the other. That has worked for me. The ice cools the icing much faster than placing in the fridge. I don't have hot hands, but I was piping frills on a cake and it was early Oct & it was unusally hot for Oct. Not hot enough to put on the AC in the house. Same thing was happening, my icing was so soft, couldn't pipe. It came out like ooze. Thank goodness I had 2 of the same tip. So I googled & saw the idea I posted here. Also the meringue pwdr will help to keep your your rose stiff as well. Give it a try. Hope that helps. :o)
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Another Idea Tammi is the new silicone piping bag. Better insulated, easier to hold in your hand. Kinda like a platex rubber glove turned into a piping bag. I found out about them at my Dec cake club meeting. I have tried 3 x's now to purchase them, and every time I go, they are sold out. Thank goodness the store is relatively close to me. Not sure where in Florida you could purchase them. Also, the tip about making your icing stiff might work for you too. Make it xtra stiff, that way when it begins to soften, it is actually the right consistency.
The other option is to learn to make roses from fondant/gumpaste. That is fun too. :o)
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Permalink Reply by Katy Nott on
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Tammi, I don't know if you can still get these as mine is a gazillion years old - but I love my metal icing pump! I don't get on well the bags as I seem to get in a mess. They do hold more icing and are a bit more flexible, but your hand is round it all the time. With the pump, you don't have your hand round it so much as the pump does the pushing rather than by squeezing it. (Hope that makes sense....) It looks a bit like this -
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Never ever seen a icing "pump" Katy. Have seen a metal cookie press, but not this. intriguing???
Will have to google & see if we can get it here. :o)
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I'll try and remember to take a photo and post it tomorrow June. My mum always used a pump and at an early age, she bought me one too and I've had it ever since. The biggest drawback is it doesn't hold as much icing as a bag and you constantly have to refill it, which is a bit of a pain. But it has a coupler so you can change nozzles easily. It's also a little tricky to get it into small spaces as it's obviously not 'bendy'! Oh and it only takes small nozzles lol - but apart from that.................
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These are pics of my icing pump. Think they are fairly self explanatory -
June Kowalczyk said:Never ever seen a icing "pump" Katy. Have seen a metal cookie press, but not this. intriguing???
Will have to google & see if we can get it here. :o)
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You know Katy, now that I see this, I realize we/my Mom had the same thing!!! We had a box with the cookie press and this decorator "pump". I sort of remember her using this to put on swirls & dolups on our famous "Clark" chocolate cake. Didn't actually recognize it until I saw a larger picture. I have absolutely no idea what happened to it. Don't know if she took it when they sold the house??? Oh well. Would have been fun to have had the set. I suppose if I really, really wanted one, I bet I could probably find it on a web search. :o)
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