My brother is turning 15 and he asked me to bake cupcakes with the "CARS" theme. Problem is I have to make 2 1/2 dozen of them by this Friday, and I'm just starting out with making my own stuff from scratch. I don't want to mess them up and don't have the money to buy ingredients.
I have regular vanilla (Pillsbury) and chocolate (Duncan Hines) frosting in the cabinet...can I use that if I want to decorate with the 1M tip? I heard that if you use frosting and it's not butter cream you have to add a little powdered sugar to make it thicker? If so, how much?
Any help or advice is very much appreciated. Thanks.
I have never done it but I would guess that you are going to add the ps a bit at a time until you get the consistency you need/want! I wouldn't think it would take too much. You use up lots of icing using the 1M tip to frost cupcakes so if you only have one of each I wouldn't use that tip. You can frost them with a spatula and make a nice swirl patten and use lots less icing.
You can use the larger star tips--like an 18 or 21--for a nice swirl. Buttercream really is soo easy and quick to make--you could whip up a batch in less than 15min and it tastes soooo much better.
Goodluck!
I have never tried thickening the store bought icings, but I have heard that no matter how much powdered sugar you add, you could never get it to the proper consistence to decorate.
I guess it would be worth a try, but whipping up a batch of BC icing is really easy and quick.
no you really cant use store bought icing unless your just going to put some on with a spatula. but for any kind of decorating that you want to hold up no matter how much ps you add store bought will not hold up plus it will taste bad with all that extra sugar you will probably end up buying something 2 cans isnt enough to decorate 2 2/2 dozen at least not for me but then agian i use obscene amounts of frosting 
so if your not comfortable makeing your own frosting then you could always buy wilton ready made decoraters frosting you can find it at walmart or hobby stores and isnt much more expensive then betty or duncan.
Before I learned how to make icing a friend gave me the following recipe -
3-4 c. powd sugar
1 stick butter
1 c. crisco
1-2 tsp vanilla
1 can ready made frosting
Mix butter & crisco first then add other ingredients. Tint with desired colors. This makes a lot of icing.
It came out really good, tasted great and I used it to pipe stars. I don't remember if it was stiff enough for flowers. I used this recipe when I made the dinosaur cake in my photos. Good luck!
Hi grumpyx07,
You might have the ingredients to make your own buttercream frosting; it's really quite easy.
Here are a few recipes for you:
(and don't worry if you only have salted butter or margarine, even with these substitutions, your b/c will be way better than canned.)
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-1948-Butter-Cream-with-real-butter-for-decorators.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2123-Buttercream-Dream.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2006-Dreamy-Cream.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2187-0-Best-Creamy-Decorator-Icing-by-Martha-with-Coffee-mate--Sure-beats-Wilton.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2110-Marshmallow-Creme-Buttercream.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2047-Crusting-Cream-Cheese-Icing.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-750-Chocolate-Frosting-III.html
HTH
P.S. Your brother is very lucky to have such a sweet sister 
grumpyx07, you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen! The recipe I use is pretty simple (Wilton):
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. margarine
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp butter extract (optional, but really good!)
4 cups powered sugar
2 Tbsp milk
Pretty easy 
! Good luck 
!
All right guys I'm going to have to be difficult and contradictory here. I just last week decorated the Spiderman Wilton pan cake with canned icing from the store and all those little stars held up just fine for about a week (until it was all gone). I didn't have to put it in the fridge either. I know it was the easy way out, please don't make me an outcast from CC. 
I always make my own buttercream but occasionally I end up not being able to due to time constraints. the only time I've ever had any luck with store bough icing is with the Duncan Hines Homestyle stuff. I've only used the classic chocolate and dark fudge I think it's called. If you look in my pictures, I used it for the treasure chest cake and the chocolate cake with the basketweave on the side. It held up perfectly and no one noticed the difference. I didn't add a single thing to the icing; I just mixed it up real good and put it in the piping bag. Good Luck!
Mine wasn't Duncan Hines I dont think. I just picked something that looked sturdier. None of the whipped fluffy stuff. It was plain white and it took color and held it well. Hope it all works out for you no matter what you decide to do!
I just made cupcakes yesterday and used store bought frosting instead of making my own BC. It held up just fine using the 1M tip. I didn't have to add anything to it. They just need to set out for a little bit so the frosting has a chance to harden. The only problem is that one can only frosted about 11 cupcakes so you definately wouldn't have enough to do all of them. You may want to consider just going ahead and making some BC or maybe see if there's any way to get enough money for another 2 cans of frosting. I hope this helps.
Yeah, I would have to agree that you are going to need more than 2 cans if you are going to make that many cupcakes. It would just be more cost effective I think to make your own probably. Those 1M tips use a lot of frosting.
Thank you all for the welcome and advice/tips! This was my first post here and I got way more replies than I have on any board before...you're all so sweet.
I'm going to try some of the recipes, or maybe even pick up some of the Wilton Ready-To-Use Butter Cream and see what I can do. Either way I'll def. post a picture to show you how they came out. Thanks again.
Here are the cupcakes I made my brother for his birthday. I think they came out okay with what I had to do them.
I did buy the Wilton ready made BC, but when I went to use it someone had stuck there finger in it at the store and it was hardened. 
My brother loved them though, which is all that matters.
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