I firmly believe that frosting and icing should taste as good as it looks, or if possible, better. I am still a kid at heart – I want to eat the icing!
So when I do cakes, I always think hard about what is going on top, it shouldnt be too too sweet, or have a bad “mouth feel”, or make you want to die after you’ve eaten it.
I prefer fresh handmade sugarpaste to the commercial stuff. I like REAL marzipan, not the almond flavoured rubbish.
I won’t eat christmas cake if there isnt real marzipan on it. Sugarpaste numbers take a bit of time to do, and are bit more expensive, but the icing perfectly seals the cake, making its shelflife longer (if you an resist eating it!), and creating dramatically realistic results. For real luxury, handmade sugarpaste and marzipan is the way to go. Butter sugarpaste is another super smooth way to finish a cake, and its sooo delicious!
When it comes to cupcakes, I like buttercream better than boring old icing sugar icing where theres a teaspoon of butter and the rest is icing sugar and milk. You can get a huge swirl of buttercream on a cupcake and while you might need to go for a 10k run afterwards, at least you don’t need your stomach pumped. Buttercream makes great, not too sweet layers too, and is practically begging to be flavoured with a bit of what you fancy. Grand Marnier or Creme de Vanille is just the beginning.
Perhaps even better than the buttercream option, there is also Butter Roux frosting, an even smoother relative. Its a little lighter in calories than buttercream and is super creamy and not so sweet. It works amazingly well with the addition of powdered matcha (Japanese green tea powder) or melted chocolate.
For a almost white frosting which is still buttery there is washed mock cream, which has a high water content and is a little lighter and less sweet. French and Italian buttercreams are also wonderful, the extra work yields a perfectly smooth product.
For those who like a little peppermint, head over to my Candycane Frosting recipe – a white chocolate peppermint buttercream that will make you swoon.
Berry me up – try crushed strawberry, raspberry or Blueberry Frosting on a cupcake – now you can have your summer and eat it too!
Another great love is liquid fondant frosting, like on petits fours. I indulge in high-fear sugarcraft and make fondant from scratch – with the results of a finer crystalline structure than icing sugar that gives you a better mouthfeel (like eating silk!) and an incredibly glossy finish, but you can also buy ready made “pouring fondant” from cake decorating shops.
A nice addition to the frosting family is Marshmallow Frosting – a fat free number which is snow white and billowy. Or why not try classic meringue on a rich spongecake?
Chocolate Ganache is a close personal friend. Chocolate (dark, milk or white) and cream, either whipped until fluffy and piped or poured over to coat. White chocolate ganache is great – the cream can be flavour infused without affecting the colour – how about vanilla pods, coffee beans or even earl grey tea? Chocolate lovers should head straight to my Heavenly Chocolate Frosting recipe – you will never go back.
And where would carrot cake be without Cream Cheese frosting? Piled ridiculously high and super scrumptious with the addition of white chocolate.
And for the top of the top there are flowers. Sugarpaste flowers are time consuming and therefore a bit costly, but porcelain thin and delicately dusted with colour – they are almost sweeter than the real thing. Cherry blossoms, roses, orchids, daisies, chrysanthemums, lillies…
Or for the chocoholic, chocolate curls, bark, lace…. or how about a dramatic chocolate collar?
On the other hand, there is toffee… a spoonful of Spun Sugar will help the “medicine” go down…
And when I’m feeling lazy, there are always bruleed marshmallows – so much more than S’mores!
xxx
