Icing Worms

I have four cupcake cookbooks and they all make icing look so easy. So easy, in fact, that no one actually tells you how to ice. How hard could it be?

I attempted Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream icing for cupcakes for a potluck. All that's in this icing is five egg whites, one POUND of butter and one cup of sugar. The icing turned out ok, but when I added colour, it all went downhill. I'm told that you should always add gel paste as colouring because the colour takes better. I didn't have it, so I added regular red food colouring and the best colour I could make was like a skin tone. Gross.

Then I whipped out my new icing tip -- a Wilton 21, a nice star tip. This is what happened:

My icing didn't even cover the cupcake and it certainly didn't come out in a smooth flow like I expected it. It came out clumpy and inconsistent.

After a number of failed attempts, I switched icing tips to a Wilton 12, which is a large, round tip. It pretty much looked like there were skin coloured worms on my cupcakes.

Here, in all their glory, are my cupcakes, which will not be making it to the potluck on Thursday. Sigh.

Lessons learned:

• 
  
  gel food paste is essential for colouring icing
• 
  
  never use a pound of butter, ever
• 
  
  cupcake decorating lessons might be a good idea