Frostings, Icing, and Fondant

First, big news for the Cake Flake! My mother bought me a Wilton class at Joann, and I'm starting Fondant and Gumpaste on February 4th. I've been spending a lot of time trying to get the equipment and ingredients together. The class is pretty inexpensive if you catch a special, but the supplies run about $100, which my mother include in her gift. Thank you, Mom!

I stated in my first post that, as I prioritize taste over appearance, I was not interested in fondant. My Wilton teacher told me that fondant tastes like you had put a piece of chewing gum on top of your cake. Well, a couple of months ago I taught a cake decorating class for the Young Women's group at church with Kelly Hall of Sweet Nectar Confections. I taught buttercream and she taught fondant, and she shared with me some Satin Ice Fondant, which tasted like plain sugar and wasn't too chewy. I now find the idea of fondant pretty interesting, and I LOVE some of the things you can do with it decoratively.

I've been thinking a lot about frostings since I started the blog. I even did a taste test a while ago. I like many bakers, like Italian or Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which has a ratio of 1 part sugar to 1 part butter (as I made it; recipes do vary). Everyone else at the tasting said that the meringue frostings were too rich or even greasy, and preferred the American Buttercream, made with 2 parts sugar to 1 part butter. I revived the 1:1 ratio in my new Fudge Frosting.

The "greasy" comment brings me to another thought. In buttercream, the dominant favors are sugar and butter. If the frosting does not have enough sugar for your taste, it will seem fatty or greasy because that's the only other dominant flavor. In meringue buttercreams, the meringue adds body but not flavor. A cream cheese or chocolate frosting adds complexity with either tangy or bitter flavors. But, absent a third player, a frosting is either too sweet, too rich, or, ideally, in balance.

Again I have mentioned taste. People have very different preferences for sweetness. Early in our relationship I made my now-husband a lemon meringue pie, his favorite dessert, from a Cooks Illustrated recipe. He hated it because it was way too sour for his preference. I loved it and, embarrassingly, ate the whole pie in the next couple of days. I learned two valuable lessons: one in my husband's blunt honesty, and another in the importance of cooking to your audience's taste.

So what I the correct sweetness for frosting? 2:1, 1:1, or as Rose Levy Berenbaum specifies, 1 part sugar to 2½ parts butter? The correct answer is, of course, any and all of these, depending on the occasion. Based on my taste test I default to the 2:1 American Buttercream. If I am baking for myself or another baker I would use a 1:1 frosting.

But fondant allows an interesting possibility. Perhaps I can frost a cake with a less sweet frosting, then top it with thinly rolled fondant? Then you could eat the fondant or not, and enjoy your individual sweetness preference. I can't wait to try it.

A final thought: frosting versus icing. My husband has been teasing me about this question since I started the blog. According to Serious Eats, frosting is thicker and richer, while icing tends to be thinner and sweeter, though these aren't absolute. That makes sense to me, and I've tried use the more specific (IMO) word frosting in my blog.

The endless varieties of frostings and icings fascinates me, and I will continue to read recipes and bug every baker I meet.

 

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Fudge Frosting

This is a new, original chocolate frosting recipe I am very happy with. I made it by accident when I ran out of powdered sugar, but I liked it so much that I used it on my own birthday cake.

The flavor comes from cocoa. I used mostly the Scharffen Berger Natural, topped off with some Hershey Special Dark. Good cocoa is expensive!

I wanted the same yield as my American Buttercream recipe, but with a different ratio of ingredients.

I started by creaming 12 ounces or 3 sticks of very soft salted butter. I then added an equal weight of shortening and mixed them together. You can see that, by creaming the butter first, I have eliminated the butter lumps I previously struggled with. I also here mixed in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

I next measured and sifted 6½ ounces of cocoa. I measure directly into my "sifter." Cocoa is so fatty that it has lumps if I don't sift it.

I mixed 1½ pounds powdered sugar and the cocoa into the butter, a little at a time. When the sugar was almost all in, I mixed in 2 tablespoons meringue powder, which is optional. Finally I added about 2 tablespoons milk to smooth it out.

The final frosting is a lot softer than the American Buttercream. Most significantly, it doesn't crust, so you can use the Viva trick to get it very smooth. I really prefer the flavor.

I'm using a Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, baked in three layers.

I'm going to demonstrate how I use the icer tip. Warning: this is my first video.

I'm using a 16" reusable Wilton Bad with the end cut to fit the icer tip.

After the bag is filled, I twist the end closed, like a bread bag,

Then I tuck the end under, where its secured in my hand.

I pipe with my right hand, while spinning the turntable with my left. This makes icing application much easier.

Moving right along, this is what happens when you don't level the tops of your cakes. I use the wedge shape of the icer bag to fill in the gaps, then frost the sides.

The frosted cake.

The final birthday cake, after my son helps me with the sprinkles.

It was wonderful, but a little overwhelming, with the chocolate, butter, and sugar, which is what I wanted :-) I gave the leftovers to the local Missionaries already, which makes me a little sad.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Makes enough frosting for a 9" 3-layer cake.

12 ounces or 3 sticks salted butter

11 ounces or 1½ cups vegetable shortening

1 tsp vanilla extract

1½ lbs or 5 cups unsifted confectioners' sugar

6½ ounces or 2½ cups good cocoa, natural or Dutch processed, sifted after measuring

2 tbsp meringue powder, optional

2-4 tbsp milk, cream, or water

Beat butter in mixer until smooth. Beat in shortening, then the vanilla extract.

Add powdered sugar, a cup at a time, then the cocoa, while the mixer is on low. Mix in the meringue powder.

Add enough milk to smooth out the frosting. Add less for a stiff consistancy frosting, more for soft.

 

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Frozen Buttercream Transfer (Crab Cake)

Frozen buttercream transfers allow you to put an image on a cake. It allows you to use images from online or books, which is important because many people are not comfortable drawing freehand. Also, the transfer technique allows you to work slowly and correct your mistakes as you go. This works very well for cartoon characters for children's cakes.

There are two YouTube videos I found helpful. Wilton's video does a cartoon character with outlining. Seriouscakes does a more advanced transfer from a photo—wow!

This is sheet cake for my church's annual crab feast. In Maryland we take our crabs seriously, and crab feasts are very important.

It was a large event so I made a half sheet cake from two 9" × 13" cakes. I used my Damp Yellow Cake and American Buttercream recipes. You need to use homemade frosting as the fat needs to be at least 50% butter so it will freeze hard enough.

I started by looking up drawings of crabs online. I eventually settled on a this How to Draw a Crab page. My said that a more realistic crab is too gross to put on a cake. He's not from Maryland.

I did my pencil sketch on a sheet of 9" × 11" paper.

I then went over it with Sharpie.

I taped the image to a cutting board, and taped wax paper over it. Everyone seems to use wax paper and not parchment, but I'm not sure why. You can use anything flat that you can move to your freezer in place of the tutting board.

I colored my icing with a mixture of red, yellow, and brown Wilton icing colors, then piped an outline using a #2 round tip.

I filled in the outline with a combination of blobs and zig zags.

I let the frosting crust and smooshed it down with Via paper towels and my hands.

I inelegantly went over the whole design with white icing

and smoothed it with an icing spatula.

I froze the design for 45 minutes. You are supposed to freeze it for at least 90 minutes, but I was running late. Finally I turned the design onto the cake and removed the paper.

Good luck with your cakes!

 

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American Buttercream

Sorry I missed a week. I was in a car accident that was the scariest experience in my entire life. Thankfully, I am all healed up and ready to go back to writing and baking.

I am finally posting my recipe for American Buttercream. American buttercream is much sweeter than the European buttercreams, and much easier to make. It takes just a couple of minutes, and is much cheaper (and arguably better) than frosting in cans.

It took me months to develop a recipe that I liked, but please don't let that put you off. There are many good recipes. Serious Cakes has an entire blog devoted to her buttercream, and check out Arti Cakes to see the art that can be created with frosting. It's only those of us that work with it all the time that are so picky about our frosting.

This is the exact frosting recipe that won my Frosting Taste Test by a mile. It is based on the Wilton buttercream recipe; not the one on their web site, but the one they teach in Decorating Basics. It makes a lot of frosting, enough to frost and decorate a 2 to 4 layer cake.

About an hour before I want to make the frosting, I put 8 ounces of salted butter on the counter to soften. It is much, much easier to work with softened butter. When I'm ready I put the butter and 7 1/4 ounces Crisco in my mixer bowl. This is approximately equivalent to 1 cup of each, but I much prefer weighing shortening instead of scraping it out of measuring cups.

Why shortening? As I wrote previously, shortening is soft at a wide range of temperatures, has emulsifiers that stabilize the frosting, and is already aerated with little gas bubbles.

I also here add 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring. You can of course use any flavorings you like, and as much as you like. If I wanted the frosting to be very, very white I would use clear vanilla and premium butter, which isn't yellow.

I beat the heck out of the fats with the beater blade of my mixer. If one fat was firmer, I would beat that one alone first. You don't want lumps, but if lumps persist, the friction from the sugar will smooth them out.

Next I add 2 pounds of Confectioners' Sugar or 10x. Luckily, Domino sells 10x in 2 pound bags, so you don't need to measure it. If my sugar is lumpy, I curse a lot and then sift it. Sugar lumps clog piping tips.

I add my sugar all at once, but most people are less reckless and add it a little bit at a time.

If I want chocolate buttercream, I also add 4 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) unsweetened cocoa. The quality of the cocoa really affects the flavor here, so make sure it's a cocoa you like. I've recently used Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa, and it was very good. Natural or Dutched doesn't matter in this application.

I mix in the sugar at the very slowest speed, and I don't have too much problem with flying sugar, but your experience may vary.

I stop when I hear the mixer start to strain. I don't know why, but I always smile at this point, like I'm a bada** Kitchenaid abuser. I'm weird, I know.

I add 2 to 4 tablespoons milk, depending on how stiff I want the frosting. You can use water, cream, or even liquor (according to my teacher). If I'm just frosting the cake, I add milk until the frosting is spreadable. If I'm doing a lot of piping, I add as little liquid as I can while still making it smooth. Chocolate frosting will require a lot more liquid because of the drying nature of cocoa.

I've put one layer of Damp Yellow Cake (the same recipe I used for the Strawberry Cassata Cake) on my turntable, and a large glob of frosting in the middle.

The frosting is easy to spread with a long offset spatula.

I put the second layer on the first, bottom side up. As you can see, the cake stuck to the parchment a little and the bottom is torn. If I tried to frost this layer with a spatula, it would have a lot of crumbs.

Instead I use the Witon 789 Icer Tip and piping bag. I need to get a bigger bag, like this Ateco Icer bag, as this one needs refilled two or three times to frost a whole cake.

This is what the cake looks like after the Icer tip. I just use my piping bag like the needle of a record player and let the cake turn under it. It's very easy to smooth over with a spatula.

The Icer tip works even better on the sides.

After I've applied the frosting with the Icer tip, I use the spatula and turntable to smooth the sides, then the top, then the sides . . .

If this cake were for a special occasion, I would use the Viva Paper Towel method, demonstrated here by SeriousCakes, to get it very smooth. Serious Cakes has made a lot of very good YouTube tutorials if you're interested. Why Viva? It's the only brand without embossing. Parchment or wax paper, smoothed with your hands, works too, but only with a frosting that forms a crust.

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Vanilla Frostings Compared

After reading All Yellow Cakes Compared at Cookie Madness, I was inspired to try the same thing with frostings.

I made Swiss and Italian Meringue Buttercream, French Buttercream, American Buttercream, and Boiled Milk Icing.

The meringue buttercreams are made by combining butter, vanilla, and a cooked meringue. In Swiss buttercream you heat the egg whites before beating them; in Italian meringue you whip the egg whites and then beat in a very hot sugar syrup. These are the standard frostings at high end bakeries, especially for wedding cakes. They are very silky and rich, but not very sweet.

French buttercream is made similarly to the Italian Meringue buttercream, using egg yolks instead of whites. The egg yolks are whipped and cooked by a very hot sugar syrup, and then butter is beaten in. Like the meringue buttercreams, it is silky and not too sweet, but a lot richer.

American buttercream is the familiar frosting made by whipping butter, shortening, flavorings, and water or milk, then adding lots of powdered sugar. Sometimes meringue powder is included. Kids like it because of the sweetness. Decorators love it because it crusts and can be made very,very smooth, looking almost like fondant. Also, if made with mostly shortening, it is one of the few frostings that can hold up to heat and humidity.

Boiled milk icing is not as commonly known as the other frostings, and I don't think it can be bought ready-made. In Maryland it is the only frosting traditionally used on red velvet cake. However, it can be flavored like a buttercream and used on any cake. It is also called cooked icing, red velvet icing, and miracle icing. It is made by beating together butter, shortening, granulated sugar, and flavoring, then mixing in a pudding made from boiling milk and flour.

The Results

I had two twenty-year old missionaries and a family with several children over. The frostings were color coded, and I had a piece of paper for people to write their opinions down. We also wrote down the children's opinions. The frosting was on yellow mini-cupcakes, made from the BakeWise recipe.

The Swiss meringue Buttercream was the least favorite--probably because it was the least sweet. I was the only one who really liked it.

The people thought the Italian meringue buttercream was better than the Swiss, but it wasn't anyone's favorite. Reviews were mixed on the French. My friend Alysia liked it, but one of the missionaries said that it was the worst.

Almost everyone liked the boiled milk frosting, though one of the missionaries said it was OK.

Every single person liked the American buttercream best. It is the most familiar, and I've been working on my recipe for a while. I think that, with so much less sugar to balance it out, the cooked buttercreams seemed too buttery. I'll put my Recipe for American Buttercream in the next post.

The best part is that the winning recipe is by far the easiest to make!

 

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Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the Hesitant

When I was engaged and contemplating making my wedding cake, I tried to work my way through The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. That is a really, really good book, and from it I made my first successful scratch cakes. However, Rose Beranbaum is a New Yorker, and had an amazing distaste for sweets, considering her career.

I made her buttercream and it came out a lot like whipped butter. That frosting was so much work and such a failure that I wrote off homemade frosting for years. I didn't try again until my recent Wilton class, which uses American Buttercream exclusively.

Not too long ago I read BakeWise by Shirley Corriher and Rose's Heavenly Cakes, a more recent book by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I realized that my earlier frosting failure probably wasn't a failure at all, just a disagreement. To a New Yorker without a sweet tooth, the ideal frosting is supposed to be a lot like whipped butter (probably).

Reading Swiss Meringue Buttercream Demystified by Sweetapolita (a name that is a LOT of fun to say outloud–try it!) made me reconsider making buttercream, and the directions in Bakewise convinced me. Thus began my ambitious plan to make several types of frosting and compare them, inspired by All Yellow Cakes Compared by Anna at Cookie Madness.

Briefly, In Swiss Meringue Buttercream, you make a meringue from cooked egg whites and then combine it with butter. I adapted my recipe from BakeWise.

My ingredients are 4 egg whites (mine are from a carton, which might have been a mistake), 1 cup sugar, 9 ounces unsalted butter, 3 ounces shortening, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Please let me take a minute here to admire my new kitchen.

I heated the egg whites and sugar over simmering water to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the held them there for 2 minutes.

I beat the egg whites at the highest speed for five minutes, then on a slightly lower speed until cool. I only got to soft peaks; I think I would have gotten firm peaks with fresh egg whites.

I transferred the meringue to another bowl and washed my mixer bowl.

Switching to the beater blade, I combined the shortening and butter

I stirred in one quarter on the meringue on low speed,then switched back in the whisk and stirred in the rest.

It looked kinda funny, so I kept mixing on low until it was smooth.

We all tried the finished frosting. I could eat it straight. My husband liked it but though it might be better a little cooler (it's still very warm in Maryland). My son liked it "just a little bit," probably because it is a lot less sweet than the American Buttercream he is used to.

Stay tuned for the next episode of The Great Frosting Experiment!

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