My mom’s Easy and Extra Fluffy White Cloud Frosting is a light and bright, not-too-sweet topping to douse on cupcakes and cakes of all varieties!
Easy and Extra Fluffy White Cloud Frosting
This is such a neat recipe and one I have loved since I was a girl. My mom would make this frosting recipe often, and she’d top a Devil’s Food cake or cupcakes with it. My favorite part was she’d let us do the honor of loading the cake up with sprinkles. It’s one of my favorite memories growing up!
People often ask me what this frosting tastes like because it’s a little different than your typical icing. It has a bright and light flavor, and isn’t overly sweet. The texture is super puffy and fluffy; it will remind you of an extra-light marshmallow cream spread. It’s also crazy and unusual that this frosting recipe is made without butter or powdered sugar. It’s so unique!
How do you store white cloud frosting?
Because this is SUCH a light frosting, it sort of loses its consistency over time if you don’t use it right away. I’d recommend icing whatever cake or cupcakes you’ve made, and then either eating or tossing leftovers if you have any. But it’s so good, you won’t want to toss it. Get out a spoon, friend!
What do you put white cloud frosting on?
This frosting goes so great on so many things. You can pile it high on chocolate cupcakes, like the pictures here, or really any cupcake that vanilla-flavored frosting tastes good on. You can also put it on any other favorite cakes or favorite desserts, including Angel Food cake, vanilla cake, or a cookie cake. I wouldn’t put it between the sections of layer cake because it’s too light to support the weight.
How do you make the best white cloud frosting?
Here are my tips, passed down from my mom, for getting the BEST white cloud frosting:
- Use a stand mixer. Because you add a lot of the ingredients as you’re mixing, it’s way, way easier to use a stand mixer rather than a hand mixer.
- Make sure your bowl and utensils are clean. Egg whites do NOT handle grease well, and the consistency won’t end up great if there’s butter or oil on any of your materials.
- Slowly add your sugar and corn syrup. When it’s time to pour the sugar into the mixer bowl, do it very slowly to allow everything to incorporate well and form the best soft peaks. Same goes for when you add the hot corn syrup!
- Use it immediately. If you don’t, it sort of de-fluffs and loses its great shape and fullness. Also, add your sprinkles or other decorations right away because they stick best right after icing!
White Cloud Icing
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Total Time: 10 min
- Yield: 4-5 cups 1x
Description
My mom’s Easy and Extra Fluffy White Cloud Frosting is a light and bright, not-too-sweet topping to douse on cupcakes and cakes of all varieties!
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites, at room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Use a stand mixer. It will change your life. You can make this using a hand mixer, but it just takes time. In a clean bowl (any grease on your bowl or utensils will ruin the icing — egg whites hate grease!), beat the egg whites and salt on high speed until foamy.
- With the mixer still running, slowly add the sugar. Beat mixture until soft peaks form (when you pull the mixer out of the white mixture, you should get a little point that bends over).
- Bring the corn syrup to a boil over medium heat in a small saucepan. When the corn syrup comes to a boil, remove from heat.
- Slowly pour the hot corn syrup into the egg mixture while your mixer is mixing on high. Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla, and mix to combine.
- Use right away.
Notes
- Use the frosting right away and eat any leftovers, as it doesn’t store well.
- You can leave a cake that has been iced with this frosting uncovered, since any type of plastic wrap on it will be a mess.
- Add the sprinkles as soon as you are done spreading the icing. A thin crust will form, and the sprinkles won’t stick if you wait too long.
- This recipe doubles well.
- This is enough to frost 18 cupcakes or the outside of 1 layered cake. This is not a great icing to fill a layer cake. The cake kind of smashes it into nothing, and you don’t have a nice layer in the middle anymore.
- Category: dessert
- Method: no bake
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: frosting, icing, cake, cupcake, dessert, white cloud, egg free, gluten free
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I love these older pictures still 🙂
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My mom’s Easy and Extra Fluffy White Cloud Frosting is a light and bright, not-too-sweet topping to douse on cupcakes and cakes of all varieties!
This post was originally published in 2012 and has been updated and rephotographed in June 2019.
Hi. I am making a cakes on Friday and icing it. Same day. It will not be eaten until Saturday and Sunday. Will icing hold up on the cake ? You mentioned that we must eat Or throw away since they don’t hold up.
You’ll definitely want to ice the cakes as soon as you make the icing, the icing doesn’t hold up just in the bowl, it holds up really well on that cakes though, so yes, you’ll be find to ice it a day or so ahead of time!
Hi,
I really want to make this. If I make the frosting a day before the event and remix it will it work
It doesn’t really work like that, once it cools it kinds of sets, so there’s no remixing it, it’ll just be a mess. So if you are making it a day ahead, I’d put it on the cake and just do all of the steps the day ahead of time.
Thanks! And I also had another question, what happens if you over-mix the icing?
If you mix if for too long, it doesn’t “break” or anything but it starts to cool too much and then it doesn’t pipe nice and smooth when you want to put it on the cupcakes.
By far, this recipe is the best! My mom is a diabetic and it’s not super sweet. She loved it and I did also!
I’m so glad to have found this recipe, thank you!! I’ve made it once, and it does work beautifully. Quick question— how would you adapt the recipe to make it chocolate flavored?
I really don’t know. I wonder if you could use some kind of chocolate liqueur for flavoring? But it wouldn’t be brown in color…
I haven’t tried making this yet, but it looks so yummy! QUESTION: Will it hold up enough for a triple layered cake covered with fondant. I just need to make sure the frosting wont start to squeeze out the sides. Or would you suggest I make the outer ring with regular buttercream to hold in your frosting? I really want to use this as buttercream is so thick and too sweet.
It doesn’t work well for layered cakes, the weight of the cakes makes it kind of absorb into the cake, it’ll look like you never added icing in the first place. I’d do a butter cream ring first like you mentioned, not because it leaks but it almost deflates with the weight!
Hi
I used this on a double layer cake, but when I cut into the cake the frosting deflated so to speak and just looked like a thin layer of stretchiness if this makes sense between the layers.
Should I use more frosting between layers next time or is there another way to avoid it??
★★★★★
If you make a “dam” our of butter cream around the edge so that it holds the weight of the cake off of the fluffy icing a bit in between the layers it works a lot better.
So, that would be a separate frosting recipe of traditional buttercream to make this “dam”??
Yes, I normally just deal with squished icing in-between the layers because I’m not going to make a buttercream dam most of the time. Or I’ll do something totally different than the white cloud in-between (maybe do a fruit filling or a pudding layer…)
Thank you so much for posting this recipe! My Aunt made this icing to top all of our birthday cakes growing up. It is delicious, gorgeous, and timeless. Perfect for any occasion!
★★★★★
How would I add Cherry flavoring to this frosting?
Just add the desired amount in place of the vanilla extract at the end! It’ll work great.
I have scoured the internet for days trying to find a marshmallow icing that is stable enough to make ahead of time and can be toasted. This looks like the perfect recipe for the s’more cupcakes I plan to make. Thank you! I’m happy to have came across your page.
It should work great! You are going to love it. I’d love to hear what you think!
Does this work for a 1st birthday smash cake? I was just concerned that the shell that forms won’t be gooey enough for photos.
SO sticky still! It would be PERFECT for that reason, sticky but not greasy! I can’t wait to see pictures!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Especially for the video. My mom used to bake wonderful cakes from scratch (I didn’t inherit the cooking gene, only the eating gene) and she would make this icing. I loved it.
she has since passed away. This reminds me of her so much. With the video, I may brave this for my son’s birthday this weekend.