Sweetness Is.....: Multi-Coloured Icing

Green, Blue & Purple cupcake and icing

This week at work we did a demo on piping nozzles. Trying out different ones and just generally mucking around with different techniques.

The ladies that watched us this week were lovely and enjoyed learning a few different styles. I thought I would jazz it up a bit by trying two-toned icing. I'd only seen this done and hadn't actually attempted it, but it worked!!! So I'll provide a tutorial for you too, its really really easy :) :)

All the different nozzles I tried & a close up of the basket weave

Attempting a rose

Getting all technical

Swirlicious!

You will need:
Icing of your choice, as long as it is fairly stiff (I used my Italian Meringue Buttercream)
Cake/cupcake to decorate
Colours of your choice, it does work with shades of the one colour but looks more awesome with contrasting colours (I used electric purple by americolour and wiltons violet, sky blue & Kelly green)
Piping bag, coupler & nozzle.

Firstly I decided to make my cupcakes in the same colours as my icing, the other night I made up the green, blue & purple ones, but this time I wanted to try shades of purple since I was feeling girly. Mix up the cake batter as normal, then before putting it into the tin, separate into even quantities for as many colours as you like. Colour.

Shades of purple

There's no right way to put the colours into the tin, it will mostly depend on how you want the cake to turn out. I just slopped each coloured batter in so they meshed a little. You can also pour the coloured batter in the middle, one on top of the other to create a vertical layer effect, or drag a skewer lightly through it to make it swirly. cook as per your cakes instructions and leave to cool.

Before cooking

After, looking pretty.

This is the fun part! Get your icing ready and separate into as many colours as you want. Tint the icing with said colours. Now, get the cling wrap and lay a piece out on the bench. Spoon a bit of the icing in a semi line on the cling wrap. Roll the icing up, tying a knot at one end. Try not to twist the cling wrap too much as this will make piping harder. As you're rolling up the icing slim it out a bit to make it longer in the cling wrap. Do the same for all the colours.

Buttercream

Purple!!!

Icing on cling wrap before being rolled

Once you have all your colours, bundle them together, making sure the start of the icing in each cling wrap roll line up. Squeeze the cling wrap tips together so you have one tip, just be careful not to twist it too much. Grab the piping bag, without the nozzle on it (but the coupler in the bag) Roll the bag down a bit and feed the cling wrap tip through the bag and coupler. pull up the bag and pull the cling wrap through until you can start to see the icing out the opening. Snip off the cling wrap and put the nozzle of your choice on.

All my icings, in cling wrap tied at one end, and fairly well lined up at the other

In the piping bag, before the cling wrap is snipped off, if you look closely you can see the start of the icing

I checked to make sure the icing was flowing well on a plate, if you find one colour isn't coming through take off the nozzle and make sure the cling wrap isn't tangled. Once the icing is flowing well, decorate your cake! :)