Icing for Piping bags

[Ohyesthankyouglitter]

My teenage daughter has been watching loads of videos on Pinterest and has taken to trying to recreant the beautiful piping techniques - with mixed results. Either icing is too thick or too soft, and she's been incredibly frustrated.

I'm wondering if our recipe isn't quite right - any of you got any tips/recipe for how to make the right consistency icing for piping?

What sort of icing is she making?

I've been watching the videos too - haven't yet tried them out, but the one thing they seem to have in common is that they can't be rushed. Butter icing should be beaten in a stand mixer for at least 10 minutes, to get the right consistency, and some of they royal icing videos tell you to leave them overnight to perfect them.

What type of icing is she using and do you have a picture of what she's trying to achieve?

She's been making a butter cream frosting recipe 230g butter 480-530g Icing sugar, 60ml milk, pinch of salt, vanilla.

Yes - we've been trying to beat the butter for longer than I used to, then add in the sifted sugar.

I can't find any examples, but she's been wanting to make mini 5 -inch cakes, do a 'crumb coat', (which I think is where you put cake in freezer after a thin layer of icing all over), then do piping detail on top.
To be honest, I think part of the problem is that she's seeing exquisite cakes and then gets frustrated that she can't recreate them.

We don't have a stand mixer - maybe that's part of the problem, we're not beating the butter enough?

A lot of practice is needed to get piping skills, very few are naturally able to do it quickly! For practice you can't beat instant mash potato, make up a batch to nice piping consistency and practice, practice, practice, can keep scooping it up and reusing. Then I would make a batch of buttercream icing to practice with too before actually trying it on a cake. Lot to be said for stand mixer but that said I used hand one for many years, make sure it's proper block butter and not a tub of anything, have it soft to start with and beat until nearly white before adding the icing sugar. I'd go easy on the milk, I've never added milk to a buttercream yet, bit of coffee if making a coffee one but never a lot of liquid as it can split the buttercream and ruin the texture. Watch out for cheap stand mixers, often Aldi/Lidl do them and they are not that expensive at all, if you got one then I'd advise her try and master swiss meringue buttercream, much easier to get a nice piped effect but for now a basic buttercream is ok too.

Is she mixing it by hand with a whisk? She's going to have to beat for minimum 30 minutes like that. You can get handheld electric whisks for less than £10 so I'd consider one of those.

American buttercream (the kind she is making) is fine to pipe with as long as you get the consistency right so really she just needs to keep practicing. She can ice a fake cake, scrape it off and do it again. You can use anything for this, a biscuit tin covered in cling film works fine.

Thanks for these tips. Part of the problem has been she's been trying to make a couple of birthday cakes, so the pressure is high.

She's been using an electric hand whisk, and it did seem to me to be making the butter much lighter - I wonder if trying it without the milk might help.

Also, the piping bags have been quite fiddly to use, so she's made some rookie errors like putting the icing in before the nozzle was in, then having to take it all out again.

Thanks for the advice - I'd actually quite like to give it a go myself!