This post is part of my Cooking 101 Series!
Welcome to Cupcakes 102: All About Frosting! This is part 2 of my 3-part series all about cupcakes. If you haven't seen them yet, check out our tutorials on tips to bake perfect cupcakes, cupcake decorating ideas, or how to freeze cupcakes. Now that we've mastered the cupcakes themselves, it's time to move on to frosting! Which is probably the best part of the whole cupcake experience.
Pictured: Lemon Vanilla Cupcakes
There are SO MANY OPTIONS when it comes to frosting your cupcakes. Personally, I have three go-tos: Vanilla Buttercream, Chocolate Buttercream (as seen in our chocolate stout cupcake recipe), and Chocolate Fudge Frosting. If it's a special cupcake, like my Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes, I'll switch up the frosting and add fresh fruit, maple flavoring, or a bit of liquor (WOOT).
With any frosting, it's important to pay close attention to consistency. If you're planning on piping the frosting onto cupcakes, your frosting needs to be stiff and able to hold its shape. When you mix, take a spatula and pull it through the frosting to form some stiff peaks. If the peaks hold without falling over, the frosting is probably thick enough to pipe. Fix too-thin frosting by mixing in more powdered sugar a bit at a time.
Is your frosting ready? Good. Let's start piping those cupcakes!
How to Frost a Cupcake Like a Pro:
The first (and super-duper important!) step to achieving professional-looking cupcakes is to master the art of frosting them. I use Wilton equipment for all of my baking and decorating - in my experience, the price and quality just can't be beat. (I've also heard great things about Ateco products, though I've never used them myself). I use my favorite Wilton 16 Inch Pastry Bag for all of my cupcake frosting. It's big enough to hold a substantial amount of frosting without being full to the brim (which results in a giant mess/frosting explosion. No fun).
To fill the pastry bag, fit it with your pastry tip of choice (I used a Wilton 1M in these photos) and bend the upper half inside-out down over the lower half, like this:
Hold the bag in your hand at the fold - this will give you the best support when you spoon your frosting into it! Attach your frosting tip of choice and you're ready to fill your bag with frosting! (I used my lemon vanilla buttercream in these photos).
Scoop up a heaping spoonful of frosting, and use your spoon or spatula to push it all the way down to the tip of the pastry bag.
Then, use the hand holding the pastry bag to squeeze the bag around the spoon and pull, to make sure all of the frosting gets into the bag.
Pull the spoon out and repeat until the bag is full up to the fold.
When you've filled the pastry bag up to the fold, pull the top half back up and run your hand down the bag to squeeze out any air bubbles between clumps of frosting. Then twist the top tightly so that no frosting will escape when you apply pressure to the bag.
To frost cupcakes, point the tip of the pastry bag on an outer edge and apply even pressure to the frosting-filled part of the bag with one hand while using the other hand to keep the top of the pastry bag tightly twisted. Move in a circle around the outer edges and work your way to the center of the cupcake, releasing pressure gently when you reach the center to leave a nice frosting peak.
Ta-Da! A beautifully frosted cupcake. Looks super profesh, no? And it took all of thirty seconds. Pastry bags are great for beautifying your cupcakes, but they are also the unsung heroes of cupcake time-saving: a pastry bag makes it SO easy to frost a large amount of cupcakes quickly and prettily.
Frosting Tips:
There are so many frosting tips available now that it can be hard to tell which one does what. When I frost cupcakes, I have three go-to tips:
The Wilton 1M (Used in the frosting how-to photos above) is my most-used tip for cupcake frosting. It creates a nice, thick swirl and looks very uniform (read: mistake-free) no matter how quickly you are frosting.
The Wilton 2D tip is very similar to the 1M, but it is a little more sensitive to the pressure you apply while frosting and can create a few different thicknesses of swirl. Using the same amount of pressure as the photo above, I got a slightly thinner, tighter swirl with the 2D:
The last tip I use for cupcake decorating is the Wilton 2A. This is a very standard tip - just a large, round shape - and it's great for using with elaborate toppers and ganache that would overpower swirly frosting.
The great thing about these three frosting tips is that Wilton makes similar shapes in a variety of sizes, so you can achieve the same effects on almost any scale. For example, all of these tips will create a shape like the 1M:
And many Wilton tip sets also include a mini version of the 2D:
As well as several tips in the 2A-tip shape family:
Humairaa
Hi whenever I make cupcakes my cakes turn out fine but I always mess us with buttercream I just can't it get right no matter how much I follow any recipe (I haven't tried yours will be my next attempt) it usually turns really sweet and not enjoyable to eat any tips?
Jessie
If you're not a fan of super-sweet buttercream, I like to whip some heavy cream in with the frosting recipe (just like making whipped cream!) and beat with a mixer until frosting reaches the right consistency. It's an easy way to cut the sweetness if you want a more mellow frosting. Hope that helps!
Diane P
Like your tips and and are trying your Greek yogurt chocolate cupcakes
The BBC's (the Black Betty Crocker's)
Thanx so much for your easy to apply lesson on how to ice a cupcake (or anything else for that matter). I took the wilton class years ago but pretty much have forgotten not only what to do but how to do it.
Diane
Hello! Thank you for your great tutorial on how to frost a cupcake. I have read several and I find your's the most useful. I placed a link for your tutorial at the end of my post:)
shery
Hi can I bake the cupcake the night before the party and put the icing next day ??the cupcakes would not be stale??
thanks
Jessie
Let the cupcakes cool completely and then store them in an airtight container until you're ready to frost and they should be fine!
Teresa Wong
I'm baking my cupcakes the night before the party. Which is better, frost the night before or the day of the party? Is it possible to make the frost the day before and refrigerate?
Jessie
I like to frost the day of the party because the frosting looks a little fresher and fluffier. Frosting the night before is totally fine, too - just wait to add any sprinkles or any other toppings until right before the party so everything still looks fresh. You can absolutely make the frosting early and refrigerate it - just make sure it's in an airtight container and let it come back to almost room temperature on the counter, then give it a good stir and pipe normally. Hope that helps!
Ivy
It's almost Jesus' Birthday. Why don't you make a huge cupcake for Him? He's coming soon.
Pj
It's a tradition of ours to bake a Happy Birthday Jesus cake at Christmas....cupcakes are good idea too 🙂
Vickie Meisinger
Several years ago I took a cake decorating class but it's been awhile since I've used some of my tips. Your information was EXCELLENT and easily understood, plus I was very impressed with the extra options of tips should someone not have your 3 original favorites, along w/ explaining which tips perform best for various size cupcakes, which I do all the time! Your sight was SO EXCELLENT, I found NO need to look ANY further for more info!!
magilla71
Do you think cream cheese frosting would work with any of these? Thanks.
Jacci-d
I always pipe my carrot cupcakes using cream cheese frosting it works well, I usually use wilton 2D or 12. Happy piping !
Katherine
Do you have any recipe for Oreo cup cakes mix with real Oreo
Carmen Donaldson
Awesome thanks for the tips
Nika ramos
Hi I tried baking chocolate cupcake i followed the instructions from YouTube but it seems that the cupcake is too dry,help are there additional tips or ingredients that i can add to have a moist cupcake.. Tnx
rachel
I'm a single mom and never learned to cook! It's awful... My mother always pushed us kids out of the kitchen when she was cooking. I need serious help. I'm guilty of frozen food. Ugh! I need to make healthier meals for us were just gaining weight and dying for better tasting food. Please help me Jessie?!
Jessie
I'd love to! I have plenty of quick, healthy meal options on my site. Take a look through my recipe index for some ideas, or follow my Healthy Eats Pinterest board! If you have specific questions, feel free to email me and I'll do my best to help!
3LittleBirds
Thank you for this great tutorial! I love baking, but have a problem getting my cupcake frosting to look professional; after reading this, I realized I don't have the right frosting consistency off the bat, so that should make a huge difference for me. I am making Minnie Mouse cupcakes for my daughter's 2nd birthday this weekend, using pink icing and oreos. Which tip would you recommend for this- 1M or 2A? Thank you!
Jessie
I love the 1M, but it's totally up to you. I find the 1M holds sprinkles better because of the grooves, and I think it creates a little bit more sophisticated look.
Jamour G.
Hi, I am new to this cupcake experience. I am looking to purchase four or five tips to start out with. What suggestions do you have. I like the 1M, 2D and 2A but can't seem to chose another tip.
Just discovered your website today and I am truly impressed.
Jessie
It depends on what you'll be using them for most. If you'll be frosting large cupcakes, the 1M, 2D, and 2A are great choices; so are the 1E or 1G. If you want to get more into detailed decorating, some smaller Wilton tips can be fun. The 32 is great for doing scalloped edges, especially on the bottom of a cake. I also like their leaf tips: 67, 69, or 70 are the ones I use. You can pair a leaf tip with a drop flower tip (107, 224, 190) for super-cute and really simple decorations. A few standard round tips are always good to have, too - those are pretty easy to find. They have great photos of each tip and what it does on their website, but I like going to craft stores (JoAnn's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby all have pretty good cake decorating aisles) and looking through them all myself. Hope that helps!
Becky M.
I went with Ateco right off the bat (when I realized I needed more tips than I could get at Joann's) and got 12-pc large tube set from amazon. I actually just frosted some cupcakes myself last night - used the one fairly standard tip that you don't have pictured, the french tip (Ateco 867).
(And ooooh, roasted peach muffins? I'm gonna have to get me some of those. 😉 )
Jessie
I'll have to check out Ateco! I've heard about them but haven't gotten a chance to try their products yet. Thanks for the "tip" 😉