The icing on the cake is a pleasant extra that makes something already good even better. Literally, icing is the sweet sugar coating on top of a cake.
When would you say the icing on the cake?
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be the icing on the cake; the icing on the cake is/was that + clause
- I got the job, and the extra week of paid holiday was the icing on the cake.
- The hotel was lovely, and breakfast on the roof terrace was the icing on the cake.
- Passing the exam felt great, but a personal note from my tutor was the icing on the cake.
What changed
First versionThe view from our room was an icing on the cake.
RevisionThe view from our room was the icing on the cake.
The correct form is the icing on the cake, and in conversation it often has no article at all: It's just icing on the cake. But an is never used here: icing is a coating, and you can't count it as separate items. Only the verb before the idiom changes: is, was, will be the icing on the cake.
In American English, the same idea is often expressed as the cherry on top: The free dessert was the cherry on top. Sometimes the icing on the cake is used ironically, about one more piece of bad luck: The icing on the cake was that it started to rain. In an essay, an added bonus works instead of the idiom.
Your turn
Our holiday was already wonderful, and the free upgrade to a sea-view room was ___.
Show the answer
the icing on the cake — The holiday was already a success, and a free room with a sea view made it even better. That is a pleasant extra, the icing on the cake. The last straw is the final problem that makes you lose patience, so it doesn't fit good news.
Think of a great day or trip. Say what was already good and which detail was the icing on the cake.
Our weekend in Edinburgh was lovely, and finding a tiny bookshop with a café inside was the icing on the cake.
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