Different types of icing can be used to decorate cakes and cupcakes, including buttercream, cream cheese frosting, boiled glazes, and fondant. Flavors and textures can be customized, and decorations can be added. Fondant is popular among professional cake decorators for its pliability and shape-holding abilities.
There are many types of icing that can be used to decorate cakes and cupcakes. Some recipes include recommendations for a particular flavor or texture that goes well with that cake. Others leave it to the baker’s imagination. Besides icing a cake, it can also be decorated with threaded shapes like lines, flowers, and other fancy decorations. It can also be dyed to be multi-colored or dressed up with additions like preserves, shredded coconut, and nuts.
One of the fastest and most delicious types of frosting is a quick buttercream. Buttercream is made with butter, confectionery sugar and a flavoring. Vanilla buttercream frosting is a perennial favorite, but bakers can also make chocolate, mocha, almond, or anything else they can think of. It’s made by simply beating butter and powdered sugar together with a small amount of flavoring to moisten it, and spreading the butter over the cake once it’s cooled.
A rich variation of buttercream is cream cheese frosting, which is made by mixing cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and a flavoring. This type is much thicker and creamier than butter and needs to be refrigerated. It’s also not a good choice for rich cakes, because the frosting and cake combined can be too intense for some diners. Bakers may want to try using flavors such as lavender, orange, or chocolate with cream cheese.
The more complicated glazes involve cooking. There are many boiled glaze recipes that include ingredients like sugar, milk, eggs, flavorings, and boiling water. Bakers will use different ingredients depending on the recipe you’re using, but all boiled icing requires a keener eye. You will need to cook the mixture until it thickens, but not until it starts to harden or separate. Boiled glazes can be thick, like those made with egg whites, or light and runny, like a ganache glaze. Plain boiled glazes are excellent for dense, rich cakes because they offset the flavor of the cake and can even be slightly bitter for even more contrast. Thicker frosting is a thicker, more sophisticated frosting.
Many professional cake decorators use fondant for their cakes. Fondant is also known as rolled icing and is made by boiling sugar and water together to create a paste that can be rolled out. Many people find fondant to lack favorable flavor and texture, but it is highly pliable and is a superb topping for imaginatively decorated cakes. It holds its shape well, even under extreme conditions, and can be cut into many shapes.
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