Make Store-Bought Frosting Easily Pipeable With Just One Ingredient

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Piping designs out of frosting and onto cakes and cupcakes is a fun part of baking. While store-bought frostings are convenient for finishing baked treats, the consistency is often too thin for producing upright decorations like flowers and swirls. Whipped frostings can be particularly difficult to work with because, without stiff peaks, you have less control over the resulting design. Whether you're practicing your piping skills as a clever use for store-bought icing or creating a masterpiece quickly, confectioners' or powdered sugar is the ultimate ingredient for pipeable canned frosting.

In general, the consistency of frosting should be smooth and easy for you to stir and manipulate while being able to hold the shape that you leave it in while piping. Adding powdered sugar to store-bought frosting will make it thicker and give it more structure so that it doesn't flop or fold. All you have to do is empty a can or tub of frosting into a mixing bowl, and use either a standing or hand mixer to incorporate the confectioners' sugar. It's recommended that you only add 1 tablespoon at a time to avoid making the frosting too thick for you to pipe out of the bag. You'll know that you have the right consistency when a spatula can stand up in the bowl of icing without falling over.

If it gets too thick, though, don't worry. You can make the icing thinner by incorporating 1 teaspoon of milk at a time until you get the consistency just right. On the other hand, adding flavorful extracts and syrups are hacks that seriously upgrade store-bought icing while making it thinner because they introduce extra liquid.

Using confectioners' or powdered sugar to stiffen store-bought frosting works with any flavor that you choose — from buttercream and cream cheese to lemon and chocolate. But, why does this trick work and make the icing pipeable? The answer lies in the cornstarch added to most powdered sugars you can buy at the store or online, such as Domino confectioners sugar.

The powdered product is made by grinding granulated sugar, but this fine result can clump up easily. To prevent the fine sugar from solidifying from moisture in the air, cornstarch is added as an anti-caking agent because it can absorb liquids. Its unique molecular structure allows it to swell. When it's mixed with other ingredients, a binding action occurs between them, creating stability. Because of that, powdered sugar with added cornstarch is ideal for turning runny store-bought frosting into thick decorating icing.

Additionally, there are several substitutes you can use for powdered sugar — such as coconut sugar and cornstarch — if you're ever in a pinch. You could even make your own confectioners' sugar by grinding an equal amount of granulated sugar to the powdered sugar your recipe calls for and mixing it with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch per cup.