icing help!!

[tostaky]

im trying to ice/frost cupcakes (and aiming to do a full cake on sunday).
im using the hummingbird bakery recipe
250g icing sugar sifted
80g butter
25 ml whole milk

3/4 problems: after beating for 5 minutes (electric whisk) my icing is quite runny.
also it looks grainy, why? i am using silver spoon royal icing sugar.
finally, i am trying to achieve an orange color (tiger) by mixing yellow and red liquid coloring: the color i get is salmon and it seems that i can actually taste the coloring - i thought itwas tasteless.

any idea what i am doing wrong?

thanks

i also bought some glycerine but im not too sure why now? should i add it to my icing?

use less milk, you only need a tiny bit just to loosen it up. also only use a tiny bit of red food colour compared to the amount of yellow you use (you can add more but not take it away)

are you sieving the icing sugar? if not this could be the cause of the grainyness

YOu should be using regular plain icing sugar not royal icing sugar - as it only takes a tiny bit of liquid to make royal icing from a box. Icing is best coloured using colour pastes rather than liquids as you need a huge amount to liguid to make bright colours. Liquid colours also add extra liquid which will make the icing runnier.

HTH.

I would also mix the butter and icing sugar, add the colour then start adding milk little at a time to make the required consistency.

yes, i think the Royal Icing Sugar is the crux of the problem here - it has powdered egg white in it, so has probably reacted with the butter and/or milk and made it grainy.

my advice is to buy some more sugar, make sure it's plain icing sugar and only add the milk a spoonful at a time until you get the desired consistency

Ah ah!
Thank you! Off to buy some regular icing....

so i have used regular icing and yellow paste coloring and.... it tastes so good i has to throw away the leftover of icing to save me from eating it!!!

Texture is perfect too.

A few questions:
how should i store the coloring paste? fridge or cupboard?
how many hours will the icing look good at room temperature? should i keep it in the fridge instead?

Thank you so much!

it will keep it's colour long after it's edible - in the fridge or covered in a normal room IME, and the colouring should store for months (if not years) in a cool dry cupboard

do we get to see a picture of your creation?

you want to see a picture? lol!!!

i put some greaseproof paper on the bottom of an upside down dish to use as a dummy cake. it was allright, but by no means looked professional!

i will do the real cake on sunday morning - i will post it here :-)

it is meant to look like a tiger!

good luck for sunday morning then!

Picture on my profile.

It was for a 3rd bday party.

and everybody thought it was a cat.
I was trying to replicate this one

Looks brilliant - did the recipient enjoy it?

Thanks - yes, my son loved it and his friends too.