How to Keep Cake Crumbs out of Your Icing

Having problems keeping your cake crumbs out of your icing? I always wondered how the pros did it. One day I stumbled on the "dirty ice" method by accident. Actually, I didn't even know it was called that until watching an episode of Cake Boss. Basically, in order to keep cake crumbs from showing through your icing, you need to ice the cake with a thin layer of icing to "catch" all the crumbs. 

Before putting on any icing, lightly brush any loose crumbs from the cake. Then take a small amount of your regular icing and thin it out a bit with a little extra water. Thin icing spreads easily. Thicker icing will drag across the surface of your cake and create more crumbs than necessary.

As demonstrated in this picture, you'll still see cake crumbs in the frosting, but this is only your first layer.

Next, let the "dirty" layer set. Depending on the humidity in your home, this may take an hour or two. The icing should "crust" a little so that the crumbs remain caught in it. Once it's set, you can smooth a second layer of icing on the cake.

See? Much smoother and you don't see all those chocolate cake crumbs. :)

If you want to see how this cake looked in the end, check out this post.