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What is a crumb coat or dirty icing? (1 Viewer)

Have you ever heard the term crumb coat or dirty icing and wondered what earth somebody was going on about. Well, not to worry, I have you covered. And literally, that's all it is.

Buttercream Bowl Medium.jpg

What is a crumb coat?

A crumb coat, or 'dirty icing' as it's also known, is the first thin layer of buttercream/frosting applied to your cake. This layer is used to trap all the crumbs in place, thus preventing them from spilling over into the decoration part of your cake. It is also another way of locking moisture into your cake, ready for covering with icing/fondant or additional coatings of buttercream/frosting.

Tip: When you have applied your 'crumb coat' to your cake and remove the excess with your palette knife/offset spatula or cake scraper, remember to put the excess buttercream/frosting into a separate bowl rather than the one you used to apply it. Otherwise, you are adding all those excess crumbs back into buttercream/frosting, and then you'll be applying that on your second coat after chilling it, and you don't want to do that.

 
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