Household Ingredients Compared › Icing and Frosting (Singapore)

Icing and frosting: what's actually in it?

Icing and frosting are two ways of finishing a cake, and the tub tells you which. Icing sugar is the dry starting point — powdered sugar plus a little cornstarch to stop it clumping — which you mix with water, milk or butter yourself. Ready-to-spread frosting (Betty Crocker's 'Rich & Creamy' tubs) is the finished product: sugar, palm fat, water, invert sugar syrup and emulsifiers, stirred and spread straight from the tub. The frosting's list is long because it has to stay soft, spreadable and stable in the tub for months; the icing sugar's list is two items because you do the work. Royal icing mix and fondant are different products again (egg white and sugar; sugar paste) and are noted separately, not mixed into these rows.

This page does not give a health score or a "best" pick. It shows the ingredient list as printed, with the country of manufacture as printed, and flags where a list could not be verified.

The headline, in 30 seconds

Icing sugar is two ingredients. Bake King Icing Sugar lists 'Sugar and Corn Starch' — and it is a product of Singapore. The cornstarch is there to stop clumping, not to sweeten.
Ready frosting is sugar plus palm fat plus emulsifiers. Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing lists sugar, palm fat, water, invert sugar syrup, emulsifiers (E471, E435, E481), salt, preservative (E202), stabiliser (E450), acidity regulators, flavouring and colour (E160a). Sugar is first; there is no butter in it, despite the name.
'Buttercream style' contains no butter. The UK Betty Crocker tubs are 'icing made with vegetable oil' — palm fat, not butter. The cream-cheese style tub is the same construction with a different flavouring.
All the tub frostings are flagged non-SG lists. Betty Crocker tubs are panelled from UK, Irish and US listings; no SG pack transcription was retrieved for any of them, and their SG sale was not verified. They are panelled as 'what a ready frosting looks like' examples, in the same way this site panels flagged overseas lists elsewhere — not as confirmed SG shelf stock.

At a glance

Product	Pack size (as printed)	Type	First ingredient	Country of manufacture (as printed)
Bake King Icing Sugar	not stated	Icing sugar	Sugar	Singapore
Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing	not stated	Ready frosting	Sugar	Greece (UK listing)
Betty Crocker Rich Cream Cheese Style Icing	not stated	Ready frosting	Sugar	Not stated (IE listing)
Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting — Vanilla	not stated	Ready frosting	Sugar	Not stated
Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting	not stated	Ready frosting	Sugar	Not stated (US listing)

Panelled with verbatim lists: 5 products. Seen-but-not-verified: see the list below. No prices are shown: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

Bake King Icing Sugar

Pack size: not stated · Made in: Singapore (as printed)

Ingredients (Bake King official SG site): Sugar and Corn Starch.

For making frostings and for dusting over cakes and treats. Product of Singapore, Halal, 100% edible. Note: marketplace listings for an Indian 'Bake King' icing sugar (country of origin India, FSSAI) are a different brand (Sweet King India) — they are not this product and none of their listings was used here. Halal Origin: Singapore

Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing — UK listing, SG sale not verified

Pack size: not stated · Made in: Greece (UK listing) (as printed)

Ingredients (Ocado, UK): Sugar, Palm Fat, Water, Invert Sugar Syrup, Emulsifiers (E471, E435, E481), Salt, Preservative (E202), Stabiliser (E450), Acidity Regulators (E524, E330), Flavouring, Colour (E160a). May Contain Milk.

'Vanilla flavour icing made with vegetable oil.' One tub covers and fills a 20 cm double-layer cake or up to 27 cupcakes. Country of origin as printed on the UK listing: Greece. Made for General Mills International. Flag: UK listing; SG sale not verified, so this is panelled as a flagged example of a ready frosting, not as confirmed SG shelf stock. Ready to spread No butter — palm fat Origin: Greece

Betty Crocker Rich Cream Cheese Style Icing — Irish listing, SG sale not verified

Pack size: not stated · Made in: Not stated (IE listing) (as printed)

Ingredients (Tesco Ireland): Sugar, Palm Fat, Water, Invert Sugar Syrup, Emulsifiers (E471, E435, E481), Sea Salt, Preservative (E202), Stabiliser (E450), Flavouring, Acidity Regulators (E524, E330), Colour (E160a).

'Cream cheese flavour icing made with vegetable oil.' The same base as the vanilla buttercream tub, with sea salt instead of salt and a cream-cheese flavouring — and, like the vanilla tub, no cheese and no butter in the list. Flag: Irish listing; SG sale not verified. Country of manufacture: not stated on the retrieved listing. Ready to spread No cheese in the list

Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting — Vanilla — Open Food Facts list, SG pack not transcribed

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts): sugar, palm oil, water, corn syrup, corn starch. contains 2% or less of: salt, monoglycerides, polysorbate 60, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, natural and artificial flavor, yellows 5 & 6, citric acid. freshness preserved by potassium sorbate. may contain milk ingredients.

The US formulation of the same idea: sugar, palm oil, water, corn syrup and corn starch, with emulsifiers and colours (Yellows 5 & 6) under the 2% line. Compare the UK tub above — same product family, different recipe by market (invert sugar syrup and E-numbers in the UK; corn syrup and Yellow 5 & 6 in the US). The two lists are not merged. Flag: Open Food Facts secondary entry (sold in France, Germany and the US); SG pack not transcribed. Country of manufacture: not stated. Ready to spread Colours: Yellows 5 & 6

Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting — US Open Food Facts list, SG sale not verified

Pack size: not stated · Made in: Not stated (US listing) (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts, US): sugar, palm oil, water, high maltose corn syrup, corn starch, contains 2% or less of: hydrogenated palm oil, monoglycerides, salt, cellulose gel, color (red 40, blue 2 and other color added), polysorbate 80, sodium acid pyrophosphate, cellulose gum, citric acid, artificial flavor. freshness preserved by potassium sorbate.

A whipped (lighter, aerated) frosting: the same sugar/palm-oil/water base, with cellulose gel and cellulose gum for the whipped texture, and colours added. Flag: US Open Food Facts entry; SG sale not verified. Country of manufacture: not stated. Whipped Ready to spread

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked

Bake King Snow White Sugar (150 g) — a decoration sugar, 'similar to icing sugar, snow white sugar doesn't melt once you have dusted it on your desserts' (Bake King SG site); no ingredient list retrieved, so it is not panelled as icing sugar.
Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting — Coconut Pecan — US Open Food Facts list retrieved (sugar, water, palm oil, coconut, dextrose, high maltose corn syrup, pecan pieces, modified tapioca starch, salt, propylene glycol, nonfat milk, emulsifiers, pectin, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium alginate, calcium chloride, citric acid, natural and artificial flavor, colours, soy flour, egg yolk, preservatives); SG sale not verified, so not panelled as an SG product.
Betty Crocker Whipped Strawberry Mist Frosting — US Open Food Facts list retrieved (sugar, palm oil, water, high maltose corn syrup, corn starch, hydrogenated palm oil, monoglycerides, salt, cellulose gel, colours Red 40 and Blue 2, polysorbate 80, sodium acid pyrophosphate, cellulose gum, citric acid, artificial flavor, potassium sorbate); SG sale not verified, so not panelled as an SG product.
Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting (US foodservice) — US spec sheet retrieved (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, corn starch, water; 2% or less of salt, monoglycerides, polysorbate 60, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, natural flavor, citric acid, Yellows 5 & 6; freshness preserved by potassium sorbate; 19 g added sugar per serving); SG sale not verified, so not panelled as an SG product.
Dr Oetker ready icing / royal icing and fondant — sold in SG import channels; no SG lists retrieved.
Wilton ready-to-use icing and fondant — sold via iHerb SG / Amazon SG; no SG lists retrieved.
Royal icing mix (egg-white based) and ready-to-roll fondant / sugar paste — different products from ready frosting (royal icing sets hard; fondant is rolled, not spread); no SG lists retrieved in this pass.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All figures in the sortable table are as sold, per 100 g (or per 100 ml for liquids, where the source gives per-100 ml). Click a column header to sort low to high; click again for high to low. Rows marked "not stated" always sort last — a missing figure is not zero. Per-serving-only figures are in a separate table below and are never sorted against per-100 g figures.

Salt and sodium: salt = sodium × 2.5. The table shows sodium as printed (in mg) with the salt equivalent in brackets. Sodium is not presented as salt, and salt is not presented as sodium.

Total vs added sugars: Singapore packs list total sugars, not added sugars. A total-sugars figure is never labelled here as "added sugar". Where a source states an added-sugars figure separately, it is noted. The ingredient list remains the evidence for added sugar versus naturally occurring sugars.

Open Food Facts is a community database and is flagged as secondary where used: the pack and the retailer nutrition section take precedence if they disagree. Figures marked "not stated" were not in the source retrieved; they are not estimated, borrowed from another variant, or copied across flavours. No Nutri-Grade is quoted or assigned on any page in this batch — no official Nutri-Grade was found printed on any of these products, and these are not drinks in the Nutri-Grade sense except where a drink is involved (none here).

No per-100 g nutrition panel was verified for any product on this page in this pass, and no per-serving panel was verified either. That is a gap, not a zero: these products are used in small quantities, but their panels still need retrieving from SG packs or retailer nutrition sections before publish. No per-100 g nutrition panel was verified for any product on this page. The US foodservice sheet for Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting gives 19 g added sugar per serving, but that product is not panelled here, so its figure is not tabled. Ready frostings list sugar first and icing sugar is essentially sugar plus starch, but the panels still need retrieving from SG packs before publish.

Seen but not verified (nutrition): no per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for Bake King Icing Sugar, Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing, Betty Crocker Rich Cream Cheese Style Icing, Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting — Vanilla, Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting. Their ingredient panels are unchanged; their nutrition figures are not estimated here.

How to read a icing and frosting label — the jargon, in plain English

Icing sugar / powdered sugar / confectioner's sugar: Granulated sugar ground to a fine powder, with a little cornstarch (here, corn starch) to stop it clumping. It is an ingredient, not a finished frosting — you mix it with liquid or butter yourself.
Ready-to-spread frosting / icing: The finished product in a tub: sugar, fat, water and emulsifiers, already mixed. Stir and spread straight from the tub. Betty Crocker's tubs are this.
Buttercream style: A name, not a recipe: the UK Betty Crocker tubs are 'buttercream style' but contain palm fat, not butter. The list, not the name, says what the fat is.
Invert sugar syrup: Sugar syrup partly split into glucose and fructose. In the UK tubs it keeps the frosting soft and stops it crystallising. The US tubs use corn syrup for the same job.
Emulsifiers (E471, E435, E481): Mono- and diglycerides (E471), polysorbate 60 (E435) and sodium stearoyl lactylate (E481) — the ingredients that keep the fat, water and sugar mixed as a smooth, spreadable cream instead of separating in the tub.
Royal icing: Icing made from icing sugar and egg white (or dried egg white), which sets hard. Used for piping and decorating, not for spreading on a cake the way a buttercream tub is.
Fondant / sugar paste: A rollable sugar dough for covering cakes. A different product from both icing sugar and ready frosting, with a different list.

What this page is not

Not a health score, and not a "best" pick. The products above are different products, and this page does not rank them.
Not a taste test, and not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
Not complete. The products in seen-but-not-verified are not yet panelled, for the verification reasons given, not hidden.

Sources and method

Checked 12 November 2026 from: Bake King official SG site (Icing Sugar 500 g/1 kg: 'Sugar and Corn Starch', Product of Singapore, Halal; Snow White Sugar 150 g — description only, no list); Ocado UK (Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing: full list, country of origin Greece, made for General Mills International); Tesco Ireland (Betty Crocker Rich Cream Cheese Style Icing: full list); Open Food Facts (Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting — Vanilla: sugar, palm oil, water, corn syrup, corn starch, 2% or less list, Yellows 5 & 6; Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting: US list; Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Coconut Pecan and Whipped Strawberry Mist lists — SG sale not verified); Attribytes / General Mills foodservice sheet (Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting / Icing Cream Cheese: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, corn starch, water, 2% or less list, 19 g added sugar per serving — SG sale not verified). Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page, so its shelf could not be panelled from its site. Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Nutrition: no panel was verified for any product on this page; nothing is estimated. Where a full pack list could not be verified, the product is in seen-but-not-verified instead of being panelled.