Once I found a post on here about some kinds of icing that are not as sweet as buttercream but you can still used them to make shells etc. I can't find it can anyone help me? Thank you

I use Earlene's recipe, and it's wonderful! I get compliments all the time. People say it's the best icing they've ever had. It's easy to smooth and easy to make, too. It comes out white, but you can color it and add other flavorings to it as well, if you want to. I make roses with this icing, too. If it's really humid, sometimes I add more powdered sugar to stiffen up the icing for the roses, but many times I can pipe the roses without adding the extra sugar.

Here's the link to another discussion where I got the recipe. It also has a recipe for butter cake that is to die for! I use the cake and icing together for almost every cake I do these days because it gets such rave reviews. Even people who usually don't like cake always make a point to tell me how much they love my cakes...if they only knew how easy it is once you have a few good recipes kindly given away by other people...


http://www.wilton.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=3&threadid=89614&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=

The crusting cream cheese icing on this website is also wonderful and easy to use as well.

Oh, and if you like the recipe you're currently using and just want to tone it down a bit, just add a little bit more salt and/or use salted butter instead of unsalted in your recipe.

I have now made two batches of the icing below and I really like it. I can tell a noticeable difference in the icing not being as sweet. I love the texture and I was able to do a good job with smoothing my icing. For some reason I had problems getting Earlene's Cream Cheese Icing to smooth. I liked the cream cheese icing other than I couldn't get it smooth. Here is the recipe I have had good luck with.

Dream Whip Icing
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-30716-merengue.html+powder

2lbs or 1 kg bag of confectioners sugar
1 pkg dream whip
2 cups crisco shortening

1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp clear vanilla flavouring
1 Tbsp clear corn syrup
2 Tbsp to ¼ cup flour

"Whip up till fluffy. No need for refrigeration but it is fine in the fridge as well. Tastes great, not so sweet and crusts well.

darkchocolate

I'm sorry you had problems smoothing Earlene's frosting. I use it all of the time and can get it as smooth as fondant.

What I do is frost my cake with one of two items. Depending on my mood, I either use a plastic spackling spatula (from Lowe's--I use a 4" and 6" for the sides of my cakes) or a plastic dough scraper (I've also heard this called a bowl scraper). Using these tools, you can get your icing almost perfectly smooth with very little effort. (And I can wash them in the dishwasher). I think the dough scraper is my favorite, but I go back and forth. The 6" spatula is definitely better for the sides of tall cakes, though. I like the plastic better than metal because it molds to the cake.

I do the top of the cake first. I dump a bunch of icing on the top of the cake and spread it out and smooth it with a few strokes of the spatula or scraper. Don't worry about fine lines from the sides of the scrapers, those will disappear later. If I have extra icing on the top, I either remove it from the cake or (what I usually do) smooth it down the sides of the cake.

Then, I apply frosting to the side (or sides, if it has corners) of the cake. For round cakes, I then wrap my arm around the cake and take the spatula or scraper at a 90 degree angle and run it around the cake to get a uniform side. You don't have to be able to run it around the whole cake in one swipe. I use several overlapping strokes to do this. For cakes with side edges, I try to smooth each side with one stroke. If I have applied too much icing at points, I may have to do this several times, removing blobs of icing in places, to get the look I want. Then, I go back and gently smooth the corners with light, short strokes. Once again, don't worry about fine lines. The extra icing at the top edge simply gets gently smoothed onto the top of the cake (sometimes I gently press the rim with my finger to achieve a gently rounded edge), while the excess icing at the bottom edge gets wiped away with a paper towel or q-tip.

I then let the icing sit until it is touch-dry. Then, I place either computer paper or a Viva paper towel (smooth side on the cake) on the top of the cake and gently smooth with the palm of my hand or a fondant smoother. Next, I do the same on the sides of the cake. I don't try to do all of the sides at the same time. I smooth section by section (even on round cakes) so I can control the paper or paper towel more easily. If I discover a section isn't dry like I need it to be, I smooth over the boo boo area with a scraper or a finger, let it sit a bit longer, and then apply the paper or paper towel again.

This is what I do. I hope it will work well for you, too.