Easy Cupcakes

Betty Crocker Decorating Cupcake Icing

When I heard that Betty Crocker had come out with canned decorating icing specifically for cupcakes, I was pretty impressed. The product promises to be “velvety smooth,” with a buttercream flavor and the ability to “decorate in minutes.”

Being somewhat of a skeptic, my immediate assumption was that this is some kind of packaging ploy, and there is no real difference between Betty Crocker’s cupcake icing and her regular, longstanding Easy Flow Icing. I didn’t feel like dropping another 4 bucks on icing, so I still don’t know. The Easy Flow also comes with four tips and has 6.4 ounces to the cupcake icing’s 8.4 ounces. (But the Easy Flow is usually cheaper.)

The cupcake icing comes in Petal Pink, Sky Blue, Meadow Green, Buttercup Yellow and Cloud White. I opted for Cloud White.

Using the icing was fun, though how much pressure to apply to the tip took some getting used to. The aerosol can is a little touchy. It would be hard, I think, to maintain enough control to use the drawing tip to actually writing names and such. (There are four plastic tips included: drawing, ribbon, leaf and star.) I couldn’t get the star tip to make nice stars, but I was able to make borders and swirls.

The cans do not need to be refrigerated. Each is said to decorate 12 cupcakes, which makes the frosting convenient but not a great bargain at about $4 per can. I plan on keeping the can on hand to save time and mess when I just need a little bit of icing and don’t want to bother whipping up a batch or getting out decorating tubes and tips.

Oh, and it tastes all right, too.