Proper fairycake icing

Ruby_Pudding

After many, many attempts at making the perfect fairy cake I finally succeeded today by following a recipe I found on here (of course ) But I very nearly ruined them by smearing them with horribly runny icing. I really want to make that thick icing that you get on shop bought cupcakes or really thick cream cheese frosting like you get on carrot cake but no matter how much or little I use of icing sugar, butter, cream cheese, water etc I use I just get this runny (although pretty tasty) mess.

Has anyone got an absolute foolproof, surefire, knockout icing recipe that I can use to go with my almost perfect fairycakes please?

Ideally, I'd like to make icing/frosting like the stuff pictured on these:

http://www.buttercupbakeshop.com/

Madmel

The only one I use is on lemon muffins and it's just icing sugar mixed with lemon juice, and a small amount of lemon zest. I think I use about 100g of icing sugar, and then spoon the juice in a teaspoon at a time and keep mixing it. I also put the icing on whilst the muffins are still warm then they set with nice thick icing - yummy! We also fight over who gets to lick out the bowl

justin138

I get the fairies at the bottom of the garden to do mine

Ruby_Pudding

I tried adding the liquid (lime juice) a teeny bit at a time but it only took a few drops for the icing to go runny - I let the cakes cool down AND put the icing in the fridge to see if it would set a bit and it still ran all over the top of the cakes, down the sides and all over my worktop

Ruby_Pudding

justin138 wrote:

I get the fairies at the bottom of the garden to do mine

Any chance of sending them my way?

rainbowrisin

Glace icing (icing sugar and water) is difficult to get bang on, so isn't fool proof really.
If you want something fool proof then i would make butterfly cakes with butter icing - mix equal quantities of sieved icing sugar and softened butter with a dab of vanilla essence, then cut a small "bowl" shape in the top of the fairy cake, put in some butter icing, cut the "bowl" into 2 and place on the icing to make the wings, and dust with icing sugar. Butter icing is, IMHO probably the most robust of icings.
Otherwise, if the glace is too runny, either take a small bit from the runny lot and add more icing sugar (DON'T add icing sugar to the whole lot or you'll make about half a tonne of icing!) to thicken, or just put a small dab on the top of the cake and dump a piece of glace cherry on the top.
Confectioners use different types of professional icing to achieve the various looks and finishes, so yours won't always look like the ones in the bakers.
If the icing is really important i would cheat and get a supercook one in a tube from the supermarket!!! Hope some of that helps.