I need to know how to ice my cake without picking up crumbs in my icing. Someone mentioned to me that they used crumb icing first. I don't know what that is. Has anyone heard of this?

thanks,
stumpee

You put a thin layer of buttercream all over the cake and let it sit till it crusts, then ice as usual. I use the icer tip because it gives you an even coat all over and then you just smooth with angled spatula. I crumb coat everything..

You can also glaze your cake first with a simple sugar or apricot glaze - then the crumbs do not pull up. It also seals in the cake moisture!

Crumb coating works great... I chill my cakes after I crumb coat and that helps a lot. Your icing might not be thin enough. If it's too thick it won't stick to the cake and when it pulls off the cake, crumbs come with it. I think the most important thing to remember is to puts lots of icing on the cake so that your spatula never comes in contact with the cake. I put a ton of icing on my cakes, but most of it will come off when I start smoothing it with my bench scraper.

I think the biggest key is and someone may agree with me but not letting your spatula touch the cake directly will reduce some crumbing.

bench scraper...if I'm not mistaken, is a hardware tool...I've seen someone else post that they use spackling knives for this also.

Hey Cakecre8tor or Anyone- I just tried the Apricot Glaze trick last night, and it never got hard. I followed the directions from the Wilton site to the letter ( or so I thought ). I went ahead and put BC over it, but it was not what I expected. Any thoughts? Thanks

Where can I find a recipe for the "simple sugar glaze or apricot glaze"?

Try freezing your cakes.I have heard that they are much easier to ice when frozen! Just a thought!!

Apricot glaze dosn'tget hard. It just seals in the crumbs and moisture. but you do still need to allow it a lttle time to seal before icing