I’ve had several requests to put up a recipe for this over the years, but for some reason have never done it. Probably because I usually just eyeball simple (also called “five finger”) icing, combining powdered sugar and water until I get a texture that suits me. Last week’s king cake project spurred quite a few extra requests for a formal recipe. So here it is!
READ ONRoyal icing is a go-to building material for cake decorators, as it’s indispensable for detail-y bits like beadwork on wedding cakes. It pipes extremely well and sets up quickly into very firm and stable structures. That virtue is also royal icing’s curse, at least when it’s applied to something like a cupcake, since it dries […]
READ ONTwo egg whites plus three cups of powdered sugar plus a squeeze of lemon juice. That’s the standard formula that I learned years ago, though these days, because of concern over the use of raw eggs, more and more people are using meringue powder to make royal icing. I’d need to consult with an expert […]
READ ONThis really couldn’t be much easier, but heck, a couple of photos can’t hurt, right? Just combine all your ingredients in the bowl of a mixer with the paddle attached… …and beat for about 45 seconds until the frosting is smooth and uniform. You might need to scrape the bowl once to make sure all […]
READ ONCream cheese’s gaminess and gumminess make it a rather odd base for a frosting. Even so, that flavor has become the classic accompaniment to an American carrot cake, and who am I to argue? I just prefer mine cut with butter, that’s all. Is that so wrong? Combine these ingredients in a mixer fitted with […]
READ ONChantilly cream is a tremendously useful variation on standard whipped cream. Not only is it sweeter and more aromatic thanks to the added sugar and vanilla, it holds up much better than ordinary whipped cream. If you imagine an individual bubble in a whipped cream foam, that bubble’s skin is made of water reinforced by […]
READ ONThis preparation occupies a sort of middle ground between a coating and a frosting. Whatever you call it, it’s good. Begin by putting your chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. This is mostly milk chocolate chips, though since I had a handful (about an ounce) of bittersweet chips in a mostly-empty bag, I threw those in […]
READ ONThis is based on a simple chocolate frosting that appears in the Cake Bible. The ingredients are essentially just chocolate and butter. What’s nice about this approach, aside from its amazing simplicity, is it’s texture which is quite rigid, much like having a chocolate bar draped over a chocolate cake. It’s the perfect thing for […]
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