What Is Ready-to-Use Frosting?

• Ready-to-use frosting is commercially prepared. It comes in sealed containers and features flavors including vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and coconut. Some varieties come with sprinkles and other items mixed in. It has a sweet, rich flavor with a consistency similar to homemade. Some brands offer whipped varieties as well, which are lighter and fluffier than traditional ready-to-use frosting.

Consistency Types

• You will find ready-to-use icing in two consistency types: medium and stiff. Ready-to-use varieties that are labeled as “decorator’s” icing are often stiffer than other store-bought icing varieties. Choose ready-to-use frosting with a medium consistency for piping the topping to your cupcake, because this will remain soft and is easier to pipe. The stiffer consistency ready-to-use frosting can be piped into decorations -- roses, letters, stars and shells -- because it crusts over and holds its shape.

Tinting Your Icing

• You might not find a lot of color options in ready-to-use icing, but it can be tinted into pastel and deep colors. Use a gel-based food coloring to get a rich color. These are available in some grocery stores as well as craft stores. Remove the amount of frosting you need to pipe and mix in a drop or two of gel color. Add additional color until you’ve reached close to your desired shade. Colors continue to develop after they’ve been mixed, so mix your color to a shade slightly lighter than what you need and see if the color deepens before adding more coloring.

How to Pipe It

• Remove the ready-to-use frosting from the tube or can into a separate bowl. Mix it to help soften and loosen the frosting -- if you have already tinted and mixed your frosting you don’t have to mix it again. Put the frosting into a decorating bag that has your desired decorator’s tip attached and use to pipe frosting onto cupcakes. Frosted cupcakes can sit room temperature in an airtight container for two to three days.