URGENT cake frosting help needed

[SillyMillysMummy]

I am making a castle cake for my bessy mate and looking at recipes I need to 'frost' the outside, can anybody tell me how to make frosting???? I think I would like white or pivk so presume I can put food colouring in it? The cake itself is sponge with jam and buttericing filling.

Best for that sort of thing is royal icing. It's white and dries to look frosty like snow. And it is good for sticking pieces together and sticking decorations on.

You can make it with egg white and icing sugar but it's easier to use either the ready-mix royal icing sugar or made up royal icing you can buy in supermarkets.

oh fab, even better, something i dont need to make myself, could i dye it pink do you know

Yes, tiny bit of red colouring beaten in will work if you don't have any pink colouring. One drop at a time though or it can end up looking gaudy!

If you bung the icing in your food mixer with the dough hook attachment, and add the colouring, it will blend the colour really smoothly and thoroughly. Kneading in colour by hand is a serious pain, it takes ages to get it even (unless you want a marbled look)

Paste colour is miles better than liquid, but a small pot will last you for years, so if you don't do much cake decorating, I'd just get the liquid.

Incidentally, frosting in American terms is pretty much butter icing... but anorak is right about using the royal icing, it's much nicer.

lapin, surely you would only need your dough hook method for roll-out icing? With royal icing you just do it with a food mixer.

royal icing a right pain on a sponge cake imo, as you really need marzipan underneath it. I would be inclined to use buttercream, or ready roll icing - which you can buy precoloured pink !