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:
Tabs
Hi,
Will this frosting melt ? I travel in train and I'm afraid of the frosting melting in the heat. It would be out of the fridge for 8 to 10 hours. Any advice on frosting that will hold its shape and won't melt.
Tabs
Jessie
It depends on your frosting - if it's just at a cool room temperature, most frostings will be fine, but you can always use a stiffer frosting (with more powdered sugar for a thicker consistency) if you're worried about it!
Zoe
Hi!
I love this page, it's full of insparation!
So, in a few weeks, on a Friday I have this school baking competition and I have to make about 30 cupcakes.
The thing is, is that I have no experience about frosting and tbh, everytime I frost cupcakes it's always a flop-i'm being honest- lol.
So, what kind of flavour of frosting do you think I should do? to impress the judges?
And also, to store the cupcakes (I had a look at your tips on storing cupcakes and Ì find it very useful) i'm very tight on time because the night before the competition I will come back home very late (this will be a thursday) so I won't be able to make the cupcakes the night before and I'm going to need to frost them that wednesday.
How do I keep the fosting in good shape?
Pam
I have to make 240 cupcakes and was wondering how much icing I will need. Do you think 5 batches? I use 2# confectionary sugar per batch
Jessie
It depends on your frosting recipe and how much frosting you're putting on each cupcake - when I do that many cupcakes I buy more ingredients than I think I'll need, just in case. I usually start with a 2-3x batch of frosting and then make a new batch when I have a better idea of how far it's going as I frost. Hope that helps!
Carol
Hi...is it a good idea to frost cupcakes when they are frozen?
Jessie
I usually frost them at room temperature because I find it helps the frosting stick better!
Sharon
Thanks so much for all your incradvice. My daughter and I both love to bake. She has mastered decorating cupcakes but lives out of state. I am using the day to practice. Thanks so much!
Jessie
I'm so happy you found this helpful, Sharon!
Shirley
I will be making cupcakes with frosting for the first time. If I use buttercream frosting, when do I put the edible rice paper decoration? Just before serving? Can I put it a day before the party?
Jessie
Hi Shirley, I don't use rice paper decorations so I can't say for sure - sorry! If you're using store-bought decorations, there might be some information on the packaging that would help, or you could make a test cupcake ahead of time and see how the frosting reacts over a day or two with the decoration on it. Good luck!
Erin
I am just wondering if you have a technique for cream cheese icing for piping onto cupcakes. I will be using cupcakes previously frozen. Do you recommend refrigerating them or do you think I can get away with one day after icing and it will
Hold it's shape?
Jessie
I pipe cream cheese frosting just like regular buttercream (as shown in the post)! If you're using frozen cupcakes, I would just let them come back to room temperature on the counter before serving. Hope that helps!
Erin
I just wrote down the recipes for your vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream frostings. Why is it that you dump all the ingredients in a bowl and mix for the chocolate buttercream but the vanilla buttercream has the ingredients added in a little here and there?
Jessie
I was probably experimenting with different techniques when I wrote those recipes out (they're both 4-ish years old! wow!) - I generally mix frosting slowly by hand or a little at a time in a mixer to avoid a powdered sugar explosion all over my kitchen (it's not a flavor thing), so I may have to go back and update that chocolate buttercream recipe. Thanks for letting me know they were written differently. Either technique will work, though!
Erin
I keep getting an error message why I try to download your free cupcake guide. Is it no longer available?
Erin
Never mind, it came thru my email just now.
Jessie
I'm glad it came through - sorry for the delay on that! I'll double check the tech things on my end as well to make sure it's still working. Thanks for letting me know!
Serenity
Nevermind. Just checked the price and realized how inexpensive they are lol.
Is it difficult to clean the frosting bag?
Jessie
Not at all! Just use a soapy sponge and some hot water, then let it air dry. I like to turn the bags inside-out when I clean them so it's easier to clean them quickly. It takes less than 30 seconds to clean the reusable bags (and is much better for the environment than using disposable plastic ones each time!) I hope that helps!
Serenity
Hello there,
I can't afford to purchase frosting tools at this current time. What is the next best go to item to frost cupcakes so it can look decent enough? My guess would be parchment paper?
Thanks!
Danielle
I know it's almost a year after your post, but I know some people will use a ziploc bag and cut the corner off to use as a sort of pastry bag. You won't be able to get the fancy details as you would with the tips though.
I hope this is helpful to someone!
Beverly
I am really, really, really pressed for time and would like to use canned frosting to pipe my cupcakes. Should I adjust the frosting to make it pipe better? What would I use? Is it even necessary? Thanks for your time and consideration. LOVE YOUR WEBSITE!!
Jessie
Hi Beverly, I've actually never used canned frosting so I'm not sure how it would hold up. Generally, though, if frosting is too thin to pipe, you can add powdered sugar to make it a little stiffer; alternatively, if it's too thick to pipe, you can thin it out with a bit of milk. You can always try the frosting as is on a single cupcake to see how it looks, and then make adjustments from there. I hope that helps!
Ross
To make canned frosting look better, put it in your mixing bowl and beat it with a whisk attachment (or just use your regular beaters if that's what you have) until it is light and fluffy. It will spread and pipe easily.
Cortney
Hi! I am 15 and started decorating cakes when I was 12. And I have already started working in a professional bakery! I just started on cupcake a year ago and I could never get that perfect swirl..... This defiantly helped!
Zara
Hey! I love baking and my cupcakes always turn out fine but it's the icing I have a problem with and I have one question! Is it normal that I feel like I'm using to much icing because I go through it so quickly? Please help and offer tips!!
Karen Davis
I double my frosting recipes because there's never enough. I freeze the leftovers in squeeze bottles like they use for ketchup. Don't try to defrost it in a microwave oven, my white chocolate glaze turned a yellowish tan color.
Nis Murano
Hi, I was just frosting some mini cupcakes yesterday. i was using a gigantic tip, which may have been the issue (but i love large scale swirls on tiny cupcakes). Trouble i had was that the cupcakes kept moving around!! do you have any tips for keeping them in place (in my case, i just had Mr 4 hold each one).
Jessie
The gigantic tip could definitely be part of it (I like to use medium-sized tips for smaller cupcakes, just makes it easier!). You could use a smaller pastry bag that lets you hold the bag with one hand and the cupcake with the other (this is what I usually do) or you could even wait until the cupcakes have cooled completely and pop them back in a cold cupcake pan, so that the pan holds them in place while you frost them. The only problem there is it can be tough to get the cupcakes out of the pan once they're frosted, so you have to be careful. Hope that helps!
Amna
Hi.
I want to ask that what i should i do to not let my cupcakes get hard? Whem i take them out of my electric oven they look fine and are aoft too but when i leave them to cool out they get harder. After taking them out whether i should keep them on my kitchen shelf i mean at room temperature to cool down or to put them in the fridge? Please guide. Plus another question. That can you help me with different kinds of frostings and fondant cupcakes or cakes? I mean can you give me some link which has good recipes of frostings and fondant related stuff?
Lindsey Poole Douglass
Sounds like you are over baking them. Always watch your cupcakes, test with toothpick or finger test (if you touch with your finger the top should spring back) at 15-18 minutes to determine doneness then immediately remove cupcakes from the tin to cool, leaving them in the tin will cause them to over backe as well! (Read her article cupcakes 101! It's amazing!)