Use this simple buttercream icing recipe to decorate your birthday cakes, cupcakes and sandwich biscuits. Try adding a little food colouring gel for a splash of colour to your butter icing. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of the milk and vanilla buttercream de chocolate and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth.

Beat in the remaining milk, if necessary, to loosen the mixture. Stir in the food colouring, if using, until well combined. For the orange buttercream variation, omit the milk and vanilla from the basic recipe. Stir in the orange zest and juice until thoroughly combined. For the chocolate variation, omit the milk from the basic recipe. Cream the butter and sugar, as above, also adding the cocoa powder. Allow the melted chocolate to cool for 10 minutes before adding to the whipped butter and sugar.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. A star rating of 4 out of 5. Beat 600g sifted icing sugar and 300g butter together with your chosen flavouring and colouring if using, add 2-3 tbsp of boiling water to loosen and beat until smooth. Fill a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe onto cupcakes or smear in the middle and over the top of a 20cm cake using a palette knife.