Adding Flavors And Colors
Adding flavors and colors takes frostings and icings to the next level. Flavorings such as vanilla, lemon, orange, or almond extracts are available in grocery stores. You can also substitute fruit juices like lemon and orange for the liquid in a recipe they’re generally not as intensely flavored as extracts.
Food-safe colors come in liquid and paste form. Liquid food coloring is commonly available in grocery stores, but for brighter, more intense colors, use paste food coloring available at craft and kitchenware stores. When adding color, first mix the color into about 1 tablespoon of icing, and then blend that into the rest of the icing.
Once you have your colorful icing or frosting ready, it’s time to get creative.
What Are The Three Types Of Buttercream
There are three types of buttercream you can use to decorate a cake or cupcakes. These include traditional American buttercream , Swiss Meringue buttercream which is much thicker, creamier frosting and Italian Meringue buttercream which is a much more complex buttercream to make using eggs and heated sugar.
Mistakes To Watch Out For
- Don’t put powdered sugar into a mixer and turn the speed on to highyou’ll get coated in the stuff.
- If your icing looks a little runny, don’t keep adding more sugar to it. Pop it in the refrigerator for half an hour, and it should come right.
- Don’t use butter that’s too cold or you’ll end up with chunks of it in your frosting.
- If your Swiss meringue buttercream looks as though it’s splitting or starts to look like scrambled eggs, don’t throw it out and start again. Keep beating it, and it will eventually come right.
- Don’t put butter into the Swiss meringue while it’s still warmyou’ll end up with a gloopy mess.
- If your frosting comes out of the refrigerator a little too hard, don’t add a lot of water to loosen it. Try mixing it, and if need be, add a very small amount of waterone drop at a timeto thin it out.
- When using egg whites, don’t get any yolk in them, as you won’t be able to form meringue. Also, ensure your bowl, utensils, etc are really clean.
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Homemade Cake Icing Colors
There are times when you need a special frosting color when decorating your cake, and commercial food colors are either unavailable or simply unable to provide the special icing color that’s wanted.
The easy instructions in these homemade cake icing recipes show how to make your own Pure White, Midnight Black, and Yellow Gold colored icings.
How to Make Pure White Icing
If you ever need pure white icing for a cake, you can use whipped cream or a shortening-based icing.
The whipped cream version might be tastier, but it might not work if your cake has to sit out for a while, or you want to pipe detailed decoration for your cake.
This homemade cake icing recipe makes a pure white frosting that works well for decorating purposes and can withstand warm room temperatures.
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons of clear vanilla extract 7 to 8 teaspoons of water
Only use a “clear” vanilla extract otherwise, it will darken the icing. A clear almond extract can be substituted for a change of flavor. Blend the shortening and vanilla extract until the mixture is creamy.
Add the icing sugar, a bit a time, and blend until very creamy and smooth. Add a little water to get your icing to the desired consistency: about 2 teaspoons of water for medium consistency, and about 3 or 4 teaspoons for thin.
Thin is suitable for icing the cake itself, while medium is best for piping decorations. If your icing turns out too runny, simply add some more icing sugar to thicken it.
How to Make Black Icing
Cream Your Butter To Begin
Before you add any other ingredients, its important to beat your butter on its own using an electric mixer until creamy. On a medium speed, this should only take a minute or two but will ensure your frosting is smooth and silky. If your butter is at room temperature this will be a quick and easy step, but if your butter was too hard to begin with, itll be more of a effort to get it smooth. At this stage, there should be no lumps of butter.
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How To Make Buttercream Icing
Whip up your best-ever batch of buttercream icing using this step-by-step guide. With an irresistibly creamy texture, it’s a great addition to your standard bakes.
How to make buttercream icing
How to make make buttercream icing
Start by beating room temperature butter with an electric mixer until as white as possible, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Now add the icing sugar mixture a little at a time and keep on beating.
Once all the icing sugar is incorporated into the butter, youll have a nice smooth icing. Beat in a little milk to make the icing nice and spreadable. There you have it- beautiful, fluffy buttercream. Now youre ready to spread the buttercream over a homemade or bought cake.
Spread the buttercream over the tops and sides of the cake. Now you know how to make buttercream, you too can give your cakes a professional finish.
How To Make My Secret Less
First, we make the roux. Its just like how we start creamy-sauce savoury foods like Mac and Cheese except its sweet, and we take it much further until its very thick.
Milk, sugar, flour Stir the sugar and flour in a dry saucepan over medium heat this just toasts the sugar lightly to bring out some flavour. Then slowly pour the warm milk in as you whisk
Cook over medium heat until it thickens in a thick dolloping custard. The range of thickness possible is actually quite broad Ive made it way thicker and it still worked perfectly. In fact, the frosting holds its structure longer, and it pipes with sharper, more defined edges even though it is just as fluffy. Just dont take it off when its still watery.
Scrape it into a bowl
Cover roux with cling wrap, pressing onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming then very importantly, allow to fully cool otherwise it will melt the butter. It will become like a thick, pasty, thoroughly unappetising jelly and at this stage you will start doubting me. Have faith!
Cooling the roux / making ahead I usually cool on counter for 20 minutes then refrigerate for 30 minutes or so to speed things up but dont let it get fridge cold because otherwise it wont mix together well with the room temp butter . You can also leave it overnight in the fridge but take it out about 1 hour prior to dechill it and bring to room temperature.
Now, we whip it up like any other frosting.
8. Voila! Your Fluffy Vanilla Frosting is done!
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How Do You Make Cream Cheese Flavor Without Cream Cheese
Using yogurt or mascarpone cheese, along with a squeeze of lemon juice for tartness, will work, but the flavor wont be exactly the same. To make vegan cream cheese, you may either purchase vegan cream cheese or make your own by combining silken tofu with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to mimic the texture and flavor of cream cheese.
Snapshot: My Secret Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
Texture: Light and fluffy. Sits between buttercream and whipped cream, but more towards lightness of whipped cream. 100% smooth.
Sweetness and richness: Much less sweet than buttercream with 60% less sugar. In reality it is quite rich because it uses 225g/2 sticks of butter but it doesnt taste rich because of the very fluffy, whipped cream-like texture.
Uses: Piped or spread onto cakes and cupcakes, or used in place of cream to dollop onto or on the side.
How it sets: At room temperature, its soft and fluffy but firm enough to be piped into tall swirls. In the fridge, it will set and become firmer, but not hard like butter. This frosting does not get a crust.
Storage: Keep covered in airtight container or cake dome. On counter on mild days up to about 22°C/71°F. Refrigerate on warmer days that makes butter melt.
Best served at: room temperature. If too cold, the frosting is firmer than ideal.
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Can I Use Mayo Instead Of Cream Cheese
The following three ingredients can be used to make a substitute for cream cheese if you have ran out of cream cheese in your refrigerator. When baked, the tofu will have a soft texture similar to cream cheese, and the lemon juice and margarine will impart the tangy, creamy flavor that cream cheese is famous for.
Do You Have To Refrigerate A Cake With Buttercream Frosting
You dont have to refrigerate a cake once its covered in buttercream but its best covered in some way on the kitchen side. You can do this with either a cake tin, tin foil or cling film so the buttercream doesnt go hard. You can leave a cake covered in buttercream at room temperature for up to three days.
If you’re re-using buttercream that’s been in the fridge but not yet added to a cake, try adding a few drops of food colouring to dye your buttercream or a few drops of water. This will loosen the buttercream before you use it again and make it easier to ice and decorate a cake with.
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Tips From The Betty Crocker Kitchens
- tip 1 Allow your butter to soften at room temperature so it easily beats up smoothly with the powdered sugar.
- tip 2 A real buttercream frosting takes little time to make, can be tinted with food coloring , and will hold up to one week if tightly covered and refrigerated.
- tip 3 Use a real vanilla imitations are not recommended. If you can find a vanilla bean paste its well worth the investment. The role of vanilla is not only for its flavor value, it also enhances the sweetness of the sugar, so bumping up the vanilla allows you to decrease the amount of sugar in recipes.
- tip 4 Its easy to vary the flavor of this core recipe: stir in a dash of almond extract or grated citrus zest.
Can You Substitute Cream Cheese For Butter In Frosting
In rare cases, cream cheese can be used to replace part, or even all, of the butter content that would otherwise be included in a frosting formulation. In general, if you are still using butter, you would want to utilize a 1-to-2-to-4 ratio, or something along those lines. This is the ratio of cream cheese to butter to confectioners sugar that you should use.
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What You Need To Know About Butter
I recommend using unsalted butter because different brands of salted butter have varying levels of salt concentration. Some people have commented their buttercream frosting was too salty. This is due to the brand of butter you use. Some brands are very salty and others not so much. Therefore, I have changed the recipe to reflect unsalted butter.
The texture of the butter makes a BIG difference. If your buttercream icing is too runny or thin, this is likely due to the texture of the butter pre-whipping, which Im assuming some of you microwaved to soften. When you microwave butter like this, you run the risk of partially melting the butter in spots making your frosting runny and grainy imagine making buttercream frosting with vegetable oil. Ideally, you want your butter to be soft enough to whip with a mixer but not liquidy, even partially. The texture should be similar to soft serve ice cream, soft enough to scoop but firm enough to hold its shape.
How To Make Frosting Fluffy
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Soft, fluffy frosting is incomparable. It is delicious and irresistible! Fluffy frosting is so much better than heavy, dense frostings that can weigh down a cake or cupcakes.
So how can you make perfect, light frosting? Let me show you how! Making frosting fluffy is something I know a lot about. So get ready to have perfect frosting anytime you need it! Lets get started.
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How To Make Frostings And Icings
It’s easy to make delicious homemade frosting for cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. Or do we mean icing?
The words frosting and icing are often used interchangeably. And that’s fine. Certainly you can call ’em as you see ’em, but we think there’s a difference with an actual distinction.
My Secret Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
I call this my secret Vanilla Frosting because its not a widely known type of frosting and people are always flabbergasted when I tell them how its made using butter, milk, flour and sugar.
Its my best all-rounder thats a hit with everyone. Take a classic buttercream, in all its rich, sweet glory, and a lightly sweetened vanilla whipped cream, and this Vanilla Frosting sits squarely in the middle.
But unlike buttercream, its 100% silky smooth. And unlike whipped cream which deflates within hours, this Vanilla Frosting will hold a tall piped swirl for days and days.
This looks and pipes like buttercream, but its WAY less sweet and rich!
This frosting is actually an old fashioned frosting called Ermine Frosting. Also known as boiled-milk frosting, roux frosting and mock cream, none of these names sound particularly flash nor do they capture the magic of this frosting that has a cult following. Some declare it as the best frosting in the world!
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How To Use Frosting
- Cakes: This recipe will yield enough frosting for a small, one-layer cake. Use a spatula to neatly layer the frosting on the top and sides of your cake
- Cupcakes: After youve made a fresh batch of cupcakes, its time for frosting! Your homemade frosting can be put into piping bags and swirled onto your cupcakes.
- Muffins: Muffins are a bit denser in texture than cupcakes, but they taste just as good with frosting. Go ahead and add a neat layer of icing on top of your muffins.
- Brownies: For chocolate lovers, theres nothing like a moist chocolate brownie covered in a sweet layer of chocolate frosting.
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What If I Dont Have Powdered Sugar For Frosting
Most recipes will tell you that you need powdered sugar to make frosting. Though this is the most popular method, there are other ways to create light, fluffy homemade icing with ingredients you already have at home. Ermine frosting is a different kind of icing made using simple ingredients and theres no need for powdered sugar or confectioners sugar.
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