Why would a carrot cake icing turn putty-gray?

[shaun-in-to]

The ingredients are cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. It tastes great though!

 

[carianna-in-wa]

Only a guess: perhaps a reaction with the lemon and the material of the mixing bowl?

 

[cheezz]

Hmmm... good guess Carianna... if you're serving to guests you could add a little yellow food color

 

[sylvia]

Shaun, did you use no fat cream cheese? It tends to be "gray".

 

[shaun-in-to]

"No-fat/low-fat" never crosses our threshold. It's a complete mystery

Used KA mixer bowl and paddle. Thankfully not serving it to anyone else, but could be a handy excuse to splurge on a new mixer ...

 

[cheezz]

The 'gray' part brings up a question about the lemons...

Was there a gray tinge just inside the peel, next to the fruit? I have a lemon tree (Meyer) and sometimes I find this gray under the skin. Have never figured it out.

 

[wildwoods]

bizarre! haven't had that happen. just made a carrot cake, too!

 

[dianem]

I once used organic powdered sugar that turned my icing that same color. Was any in your icing?

 

[shaun-in-to]

No, regular supermarket icing sugar. Actually, I first I wondered if

something weird was going on between the lemon juice and the cornstarch in the icing sugar. That would be a new one to me, but it was the only thing I could think of.

Just a fluke occurrence -- I hope!