How to Make Frostings, Icings & Glazes | Bake It Up a Notch with Erin McDowell

It's the introduction, my handkerchief trembles while I'm fine. Hi, I'm Ering G Mcdowell and welcome to this episode of Bake it up a

notch

. I'm really excited about this episode because I've been reading about it in the comments of a lot of You because you've seen in some of our previous episodes the piping episode, the layer cake episode, the macaroon episode. I've been using a lot of different

glazes

, and even

frostings

, but I've never shown you exactly how to

make

them, but that changes. Today we're going to delve into all things icing, frosting and frosting and show you everything you need to know and as always, we'll do it in top style, we'll show you all the equipment you need.

We'll show you a bunch of different types of

frostings

, frostings and frostings and of course we'll show you where things could go wrong and how to fix them, so if this sounds like something you're interested in or if you loved the previous episodes of Bake It up a

notch

, do me a favor and be sure to like and subscribe so you can stay up to date as new episodes become available. It's going to be a really sweet episode so let's get cooking so let's dive into some. Of the equipment you're going to need to

make

your frostings, frostings, frostings and all that sweet stuff, fortunately there isn't a lot, but there are a few things that can really make the process easier and smoother, so of course, here I have my classic silicone spatulas.

I also have, of course, that you can use whisks. It depends on the consistency you are working with. Thinner things, like frostings, might benefit from using a whisk, while something thicker might benefit from scraping capabilities. of a spatula in those early stages of preparation, you may need a pot, you may need a pot for something like cooking sugar if you're making an Italian buttercream, but you may also need a pot for cooking some of the other ingredients to be used. come in, maybe break up some fruit that you're going to use in your frosting or frosting eventually.

The other thing is that a pot could be used as a kind of makeshift double boiler and that's why I also have a heatproof container here. because sometimes you can just put some boiling water in that pot and put a bowl on top. This is great for melting things like chocolate that you could use as a base for a frosting or as a topping for a frosting, of course I've done that. I have my handy stand mixer here, a lot of frostings are really great to make in the stand mixer or of course you can use an electric hand mixer too.

I like the stand mixer because of course the different attachments, so depending on the recipe you choose. I'm using, I could use the paddle attachment or I could use the whisk attachment or I could even use both. The whisk attachment, of course, aerates things and can make them really light and fluffy. The paddle attachment can remove some of that air and smooth it out. So sometimes if I notice that my frosting, even if I mixed it with the whisk, I can switch to the paddle at the end of the process to get that exact texture I'm looking for and a few other things.

You'll need some recipes that will call for a very specific temperature, so I have my thermometer here. This type is actually the one I prefer over the standard candy thermometer. This is an electric thermometer, an electric probe thermometer with a long cable type. You can place this part on the side of the stove and allow it to settle. This is what we used when I was in baking school because it works great as a thermometer for multiple types of cooking tasks, but it also works great for baking and other things. like cooking sugar, getting it to the right consistency, getting it to the right temperature, making sure our eggs are cooked through if necessary.

I also have, of course, some of the things that you can use to finish, we have our spatulas, our offset spatulas, which can be used for spreading and icing. I also have piping bags and piping tips of course, frosting and fillings are great for piping and the thicker the frosting the more it will maintain the consistency of a piping tip shape. What else do I have here? I forgot it. This is such a silly little tool, but I have to give it a moment because it is one of my most used kitchen tools. This is a potato masher.

That's how it's sold, but this is not a great potato masher. This style of potato masher. It doesn't do a great job of mashing potatoes in my opinion, but it does a wonderful job of mashing fruit and I use a lot of fresh fruit in my

glazes

and fillings, frostings, all that stuff, so I like having one of these. hand when I'm cooking fruit to help mash it up a little bit, help release some of the juices as I'm cooking it and just make sure that I'm really getting the most out of that fruit so it needs its own little bit.

For the moment I think that's it, that It's one of the beautiful things about frosting. One of the most common questions I get asked, of course, is: are there any I can make without a mixer? There are definitely some recipes in this particular episode that you can make with just a bowl and a spatula or a bowl and a whisk, but there are other recipes like those based on m

erin

gue that, although you can technically make them by hand, would really tire out your arm, so than when a recipe suggests using the mixer. I say go for it, but I've included some recipes that you can definitely mix by hand and also keep your equipment to a minimum and really what it's all about is experimenting with different flavors and also learning how to achieve all the consistencies and textures to get the perfect effect, I call this episode frostings, frostings and frostings and that's because, in my opinion, these terms encompass those finishing elements, those sweet finishing elements that we use on things like cakes, cookies, everything kind of things they say What these different terms mean is kind of debatable as people definitely sometimes use the word frosting to refer to something I would call frosting and that's fine, that's how I break it down for reference.

A frosting is the thickest thing that can be spread or spread. It usually has a fluffy consistency, of course the consistency can vary and be a little softer, but it is definitely the thickest frosting of the three. It is usually a little thinner, although there are thicker frostings as well. Think of them as a thin royal icing that you can use on a cookie instead of a thicker icing that you can spread on warm cinnamon buns, but they can still be spread or spread and can do so while being thinner or thicker depending on the recipe for which you are using them.

They are generally softer than frostings and less fluffy. Lastly, we have the glazes. These can vary on the thicker side and be very thick and can be sprayed, but are usually very fine and can even be so fine that they can be poured or items can be wet or submerged. in the frosting, so it's definitely the smoothest and most runny of the three. Now back to the first category, the thicker frostings. There are so many different types of frostings, honestly too many even for this episode, but I'm going to talk about a lot of them. I want to talk about the different types and really break them down because sometimes the consistency or look you want in your finished

bake

d product may be different.

You may want to choose a different type of frosting than the previous one. You're thinking about certain styles that naturally work better with certain types of frostings than others, so let's look at them one by one. The first category of frostings we are going to talk about is buttercreams. There are many butter creams and all. They have these qualifying names for some buttercream, sometimes those qualifying names come from the ingredients that are kind of the base of the buttercream, so for example, Italian m

erin

gue plus butter equals Italian buttercream, Swiss meringue plus butter equals Swiss buttercream, others have their names, you know?

Based on the ingredients that are inside and the consistency and texture they have, the first one we are going to make is the easiest, it is called American buttercream. American buttercream is as simple as it gets in the world of frosting, it's just butter combined with powdered sugar, of course, butter could also be another fat sometimes in grocery stores or, you know,

bake

ries High production ones use a combination of shortening and butter to make it a little fluffier, but of course the butter is what tastes best, so let's mix the butter and powdered sugar to combine, basically, beat to obtain a light and fluffy consistency.

The advantages of this frosting are that it is very easy. The cons are that it is very sweet because there are no other ingredients to really help balance it and the powdered sugar. Really, what gives it that thick consistency? Therefore, I also add some flavoring agent extracts and sometimes a little cream or milk to help loosen the consistency of this frosting as it hardens. The American buttercream will form a little skin. on the surface, so it's really great when you need a little bit of frosting, like between layers of cakes, or it's great on top of cupcakes anywhere you want, like a nice touch of really sweet frosting, so we'll start by adding two bars of unsalted butter room temperature butter, we have the paddle attachment here and let's start by mixing the butter with the paddle attachment on medium to medium-low speed just to soften the butter even though it's been at room temperature. we want to start loosening it up before we add any other ingredients so it's really nice and smooth and it also helps with that fluffy texture that we're trying to achieve once we've mixed the butter in for a few moments we can get started. adding our powdered sugar gradually the main reason we want to add it gradually is that we just don't want a shower of sugar, we just want to add a little bit, let it absorb or combine, although there is something else we can do, why No?

Don't we do this and show everyone that sometimes you can just put a towel on top and then even if it inflates, it's contained by the towel? You can do it every time you add something any time you add. a lot of flour or other dry ingredients until something good, we have that first amount, let's add a little more. I'm using unsalted butter in this particular buttercream, but you can always use salted butter in most buttercream recipes, just remember that if the recipe calls for it. Additional salt, you may want to omit, otherwise you could end up with a buttercream that is too salty and not sweet enough.

Once you've combined the butter and powdered sugar, the mixture should be nice and light and fluffy, which is all we need to do now. It's like adding whatever flavoring we need to add and also adjusting the consistency, so first I'm going to add with the mixer running. I'm just going to add my vanilla extract. I'm also going to add a little bit of fine sea salt because Again I used unsalted butter, we'll mix them to combine now the last thing I like to add is a little bit of milk or cream, not all American buttercream recipes have this but I I like to add milk or cream because it helps thin out the consistency a little bit and it also helps combat some of the sweetness so this frosting doesn't just taste like whipped butter, we have to add a pretty good amount of sugar and that sugar, because it's powdered sugar, it can also be quite thick, it really makes a very thick frosting so adding a little extra fat, a little dairy and extra liquid really helps this frosting in my opinion and you can really add as much as you want To achieve the desired consistency, just remember at a certain point.

Too much liquid will make this very runny and no longer look like frosting. I usually stick with a quarter cup. Okay, let me scrape this out and mix one more time with this particular style of buttercream. There's really no need to worry about mixing too much other than the fact that you'll eventually keep incorporating air every time you mix something, especially in an electric mixer, each rotation incorporates a little bit of air, which really isn't a problem when we're trying to keep a frosting really fluffy. but at a certain point it might have a lot more air than you really wanted and basically the only negative thing about that is that it will look less smooth when we spread it on the cake, but you're not going to make a mess.

This frosting is pretty foolproof once you combine everything and get the fluffy consistency you're looking for it's ready that's how easy American buttercream is that's one of the reasons it's so popular because it comes together so easily and en It is simple to do if for some reason you get it at this stage and you don't feel it is soft enough. Just remember that at any stage you can adjust the consistency with a little more dairy. I'm just going toput this in a bowl. By the time we show them their consistency, why do I turn around?

Let me bring that bowl over here like you can't see this part that is buttery sugar, so with American buttercream there are two other frostings that are made in a very similar way, pretty much the same method of just mixing the ingredients together. to combine until you get the desired consistency, so we have our American buttercream, which is this one here, as you can see, it's a little bit more yellow than the other one. two frostings and that's just because of the amount of butter and powdered sugar. You know that the base of American buttercream is butter, which is yellow, so it has a little more natural yellow tone.

Two other frostings that I consider to be in that category are cream cheese frosting. Everyone loves a good cream cheese frosting and also what I call sweetened condensed milk frosting for lack of a better term, not sure if it has a formal name sweetened condensed milk frosting or sweetened condensed milk buttercream is made Adding sweetened condensed milk to whipped butter, first beat the butter a little and then add sweetened condensed milk, this makes an incredibly delicious soft cream frosting that is as easy to make as American buttercream but is not as sweet as American buttercream and also because it has a little bit of that milk in it. a lighter color and it's a little easier to tint and tint if you want, so let's look at all three spread out on some pastels.

You can see the textures and you know the pros and cons. I'll start here with the American Buttercream The most important thing to note about American buttercream is that it is very thick, so when you spread it on things, sometimes it can be a little difficult to spread without giving it a few swirls. to the spatula first and that's because from the powdered sugar, the powdered sugar is creating a kind of skin on this frosting that will allow it to set eventually, but it will start to set as soon as you don't touch it for a while, so which is very spongy, very thick. very airy, it's a dream frosting to work with in terms of its ease, it's just important to remember that because it's so thick when you put it on, it might break off the tip of the piping instead of creating a beautiful curl like some of the Italian ones and Swiss. meringue buttercreams, okay, here we have our cream cheese frosting.

Now cream cheese frosting will always be smoother than American buttercream because it has butter and cream cheese, and cream cheese has the same consistency as fat. It's softer than butter even when firm, so it's important to remember that it will always be a little softer if you want a thicker cream cheese frosting. Actually, what you should do is just add more powdered sugar until you get that consistency. that you personally want, the smoothness of cream cheese frosting is one of the things I typically use it for. I love cream cheese filling as the center of a sandwich cookie.

You know, things like that where that softness can be especially nice. that's our cream cheese frosting, the last one we have here is the sweetened condensed milk frosting which for me is a very similar consistency to Italian buttercream and the more stable buttercreams that I love that are made with meringue , but it's just as easy. To make American buttercream, this is one of those that I look forward to in this episode and people will say, Wow, I didn't know that existed because it's actually really easy to make and for people who think American buttercream is too much. sweet, I think this is the way you're going to want to go next, try this, it's so easy, so smooth, and you'll be able to see its color right next to the American buttercream, how much brighter and whiter it is next to it of that American cream.

Buttercream really is a great frosting for all kinds of tasks. The next buttercream I want to talk about is Italian buttercream. The reason I want to talk about Italian buttercream is because it is the buttercream I use the most. It's the most used because I happen to really like this process. I think it's one of the easiest and most consistent while the sugar is cooking, the egg whites are whipped and you can eliminate some of your ingredients, it's just the rhythm of this one is my favorite, but that being said, there's really no difference between Italian buttercream and Swiss buttercream, except for the type of meringue you're using, so sometimes people who prefer Swiss meringue prefer Swiss buttercream, so there's really no right way. or correct, but let's talk about these meringue-based buttercreams and how to get them in their proper form.

Of course, we talked about meringue in great detail in our meringue episode, bake it a little longer, so check it out and we'll come back when we have our meringue in the right place to add our butter and turn it into a buttercream when you're Making an Italian meringue, you want to start beating the egg whites with the cream of tartar when the sugar mixture gets close to the final temperature, which we will eventually want at 240 degrees, so when it reaches 230. 235 start beating the egg whites. of egg the goal is for them to be in soft peaks by the time our syrup is ready to pour once our syrup is at the right temperature we are ready to add it to the egg whites of course this is also Making the egg whites eggs are safe to eat by helping to cook them in the blender to the proper temperature.

When you make a meringue-based buttercream, you want to make sure that the meringue has reached its maximum volume but also that it has had a chance. to cool completely, if we try to add room temperature butter to a warm meringue base, it will just melt the butter and we won't end up with a thick, smooth buttercream, but instead we will end up with a soup of sorts. soft mixture we don't want so what we're going to do is now the bowl feels warm to the touch sorry it doesn't feel warm to the touch that's what I just said don't add it For the warm meringue we want the bowl feels just warm or room temperature to the touch, we want to make sure we use room temperature butter as well, so we'll keep whisking and add. butter a tablespoon or two at a time is a lot of butter to incorporate and by adding it slowly we give it the best chance of mixing and blending and getting really smooth rather than trying to add it all at once, that's when sometimes lumps of butter appear too. butter that they just don't want to incorporate.

This gradual technique really produces the smoothest, creamiest results. When you get to the end and are adding, we only have a couple tablespoons left to complete your buttercream. It should be nice and soft and fluffy. One of the things I always like to point out is that when you start adding the butter, the meringue will deflate a little. Okay, we're adding fat to something that's really light. and aerated, a little deflating is good, we just want to make sure we add it gradually enough so as not to deflate it too much at once and maintain some of that smooth, light consistency once the last of the butter is incorporated. it really has a chance to blend smoothly, so we're just going to add our last couple of ingredients which are flavoring ingredients, we've got vanilla extract, we've also got a little bit of salt, okay, I think we're super thick, super. light and fluffy, one of the other advantages of meringue-style buttercreams, they require a little more work because you have to make the meringue of your choice, but they are really bright white, so that's one of the other big ones Advantages of them is that you can dye them different colors very easily and they are really wonderful for decorating layer cakes, but also for using as a filling inside things like sandwich cookies.

There are many possibilities with a meringue based buttercream in pastry school, sometimes after we have all the Meringue Buttercream combined, we would switch to the paddle attachment. I mentioned it in the beginning part of the video with the equipment and this can help make it a little smoother and less airy. It's a totally personal preference. I usually don't find that. I need to do that, but I know if people are going for a really soft look with a buttercream like this, removing a little bit of the air is a sure way to do it, so this is our beautiful bright white, silky smooth, nice and thick.

Italian buttercream is not too sweet in my opinion and making Swiss buttercream is a lot like this. There are other types that also have a similar process to this, but let's delve into one of the others that is completely different. Hermine buttercream, the next style of frosting we have Let's talk about Hermine buttercream, which I've actually also heard called or have called in the past pudding-style buttercream, although ermine is its correct name. A Hermine-style buttercream starts by cooking a mixture of sugar, dairy, and a thickener, a bit of a starch. sort flour or sometimes I guess it could be corn starch etc.

We're going to cook those ingredients on the stove to make a sort of thick pudding-like mixture, let it cool, and then we'll cream together butter to create an incredibly delicious buttercream. I'm going to start by adding my dry ingredients into my pot first. I have sugar. I'll also add my flour. This is all purpose flour and this is a Hermine chocolate buttercream so I have cocoa powder and this is really one. One of my favorite things about this style of buttercream is that it's very easy to flavor with other things, so in this case I obviously just add a little cocoa powder, but since you're cooking it like a pudding, it makes really easy. to potentially add other flavors to that pudding by infusing it with things like citrus zest, vanilla bean, etc. the last thing I'm going to add is a little bit of salt, I'm just going to whisk those ingredients together to combine them and then we're going to add our milk to it and I start by whisking this mixture, but eventually we're going to want to switch to a silicone spatula, so I keep one close to me on hand because as the mixture starts to thicken, it's easier to get into the edges and corners of the pot if we have something like that saliva to help us break through, great, really work with the whisk, make sure you get all those lumps out.

Cocoa powder likes to form clumps, sometimes flour. It likes to form clumps, but if you mix everything together first, the sugar granules help disperse the starch so it doesn't form big clumps and can also help with the cocoa powder, so we'll keep cooking. Do this over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture starts to thicken and once it thickens to that pudding consistency it should only take a couple of minutes. We want it to cool completely before we start mixing it to make our buttercream. I love this style of buttercream because it's not too sweet. This is one that I think universally gets a lot of love when people figure out what it is because it's actually not necessarily that much harder to do, but really, really, really. delicious and because it has that dairy base, not just butter and sugar, that dairy base really helps maintain that perfect level of sweetness, in my opinion, we know it's ready when it has a thick pudding-like consistency and Actually, you should also see some bubbles breaking the surface, which yes, I'm seeing some everywhere.

Alright, so we're just going to pour this into a container into a container so it can cool completely. I'm making it on a quarter size baking sheet. or 9x13 pan, the increased surface area will help it cool much faster so we can make our frosting much quicker and the only other thing to remember is that any thick starchy mixture you want to cover. directly with plastic wrap or it may form a skin on the surface which may make your eventual buttercream less smooth, so we'll cover it, let it cool, and then we'll be ready to whip it into a buttercream.

Fun fact but I actually pretty much only wear dresses, I hate pants, once our pudding base has set nice and cooled to room temperature ideally or slightly chilled that's fine but as close as possible is best from room temperature, we're going to go ahead and start mixing the actual buttercream, so to get started. this, I have the whisk attachment, I'm going to add my butter, go ahead and cut it into a few pieces. I don't know why I'm trying to add big sticks of butter in there so we have a pound of butter here like any other day, starting with a pound of butter and we're going to churn it until it aerates a little bit. beat thisButter will not only give it a uniform consistency, but it will also make it easier to add our pudding base, we don't need to beat it for long, two or three minutes just to give it a little aeration and achieve a uniform consistency.

I think it looks pretty good, let's move on. and starts adding our pudding mixture, which has become very rich and thick now, so thick that I have to scrape some of the plastic off. You've heard me say it before and I'll say it again. Scratch it as if it were your Christmas bonus or in this case, squeeze well. I'm going to add this in a few additions just to help make it easier to incorporate. We'll start by adding about a third of the mixture and then creaming it with the butter. You can start on low heat. speed to start combining the two and then we're going to go ahead and turn it up to about medium well, I'm going to go ahead and add the rest of my pudding, what's spilled?

That's going to be good behind the scenes okay, I think we're there, oh yeah, so thick and smooth and creamy, it's a beautiful frosting and it has this natural thickness of that pudding base that we started with, but there's just one more thing we have What to do, which is add a little vanilla. Extract flavoring ingredients, such as extracts, can actually lose some of their potency if you add them too early in the cooking process. Every time you cook something on the stove, some of that aroma from that essence can cook away, so we don't add it. at the pudding stage, instead we'll add it here at the end of the mixture, you can add it to the pudding, you'll just want to make sure you add it after the pudding has already been removed from the heat of the stove, perfect, yeah. thick, so creamy it's an ermine buttercream.

I showed you how to do it. For me, making Italian buttercream and some of these other buttercreams fall into that same category because they involve some type of advanced preparation and cooking of eggs or some type of custard, even before making the frosting. real, so with the Italian buttercream we make an Italian buttercream. meringue then add butter this here is a Swiss buttercream and the Swiss buttercream of course we make a Swiss meringue and then we add butter we have our ermine which is the base of the pudding in which the butter is whipped and similar to that is the german butter starts german buttercream with pastry cream as a base, a common custard used throughout the baking world and then we add butter to it to make this really delicious cream, such a good frosting.

In fact, I've posted about this quite a bit of German buttercream frosting on my Instagram and people are always asking about it, so if you're looking for an especially creamy buttercream, German buttercream is also one of my favorites and this one from bright yellow color you see here is actually French buttercream, to be clear, French buttercream is not French. meringue with butter mixed instead, it is a mixture that uses egg yolks or whole eggs, sometimes it is a mixture of the two, even then it can be egg yolks, whole eggs or a mixture of them and mixed with sugar of the same way you would do it. a swiss buttercream, but instead you're using these whole eggs, that base is called patabomb, pat a bomb with an e at the end, patabomb is whipped at full volume, but a patabomb from a mixture Whole egg whipping doesn't get the same kind of volume that a meringue has, egg whites can rise up to eight times their original volume, while whole eggs will only rise about four times to their original volume, they still turn out very pretty, thick and ribbon-shaped, then we add butter and That's why this frosting is so yellow not only because of the butter but because of the egg yolks themselves, so I'll start with the Italian buttercream because it's the one I use most often but you go let's see she and the swiss look very similar when you put them both on the cake oh yes, so fluffy, so soft, pretty and bright white ok now i have the swiss and the swiss buttercream was made yesterday and we reconstituted it, something we are going to talk about.

We talked a little bit later in this episode and when you reconstitute it, it can actually make the consistency smoother because we heat it, we apply a little bit of heat to it, so I'm looking at this Swiss buttercream and although it should look identical to the Italian one and it looks pretty close because we just reconstituted it, it actually looks a little bit smoother, so we'll talk about that and the consistency of your buttercreams a little bit more after we go over all these different types. It's okay, it looks beautiful. Next, let's do it right next to that, the German, since it's on the same line and you'll see that the German, my God, is spreading like a dream.

Sorry, I'm getting really excited because that's how it is. they are so beautiful so the only thing you can see when you put them next to each other I'm looking at yeah you can definitely see it, it's a little more yellow, a little less white, I mean it's barely noticeable but that's because The custard uses whole eggs to thicken. So we have a little more natural creamy yellow color, but nothing like this last one here, well, it's not the last one, but the last one in this row, now French buttercream because it has a lot of fat. it's very smooth, very soft, very silky, very rich and it's really so delicious every time I make this, sometimes I use it as a filling for donuts and things like that too when I want something to be really over the top and everyone's like oh what is it that? the filling is french buttercream oh beautiful so you can see it's really smooth it's much smoother when you apply it to a layered cake you may actually benefit from having slightly chilled french buttercream to help it be easier. to frost or put your cake or dough, whatever you're putting in the refrigerator for intermittent chilling times to help it harden again because the butter that's in there will harden every time you chill it, it's just the the mixture of egg that will keep it nice and soft and silky, the last one is the hermine buttercream which of course also has chocolate in it because we flavored it so that it looks quite different from these other two, but above all I want to notice the texture and the airy, light and super fluffy it is and remember you can remove some of those air bubbles if you want by using the paddle attachment and applying a little heat again, more on that later but I quite understand I like the natural lightness of this icing when I use it beautiful, so these are our different types of buttercreams a little more complicated, buttercreams that require some type of advanced preparation, we have our Italian and Swiss meringue buttercreams, we have our hermine buttercreams and German. which start with a sort of pudding base and then we have our French buttercream which uses whole eggs for whipping or egg yolks instead of just meringue style egg whites and wow we have lots of different delicious buttercreams here, These buttercreams are all thick. creamy, all good to use on things like layer cakes, all will work with methods like spreading and spreading, but remember that the consistency of the buttercream will determine how you will be able to use it on your desired batter, the next category of frostings are buttercream frostings meringue base, wait Erin, you were just talking about meringue buttercreams, well buttercream of course has the addition of butter, but you can actually use a meringue as a frosting on its own, these make a very light and fluffy frosting, just deliciously sweet frostings and they're really delicious, the most well-known one is called seven minute frosting, which is basically Swiss meringue.

You cook the sugar and egg whites on the stove until the sugar dissolves and the eggs reach a safe temperature, then beat over low heat. beautiful fluffy meringue this can go directly on a layer cake right on top of the cupcakes it's really a great way to finish many different cakes but remember it's not as good to use on layer cakes because it's not as strong or sturdy when you put it on in the refrigerator, it won't set up like a buttercream does, so for the inside of the layers, you may want to go with something else and stick with that seven-minute frosting or meringue on the outside, just like the 7 minute meringue frosting. whether toasted or not, I usually like to use my kitchen blowtorch to toast it, since you know, I can't stop, I won't stop setting things on fire, okay, and then the other style of frosting that falls into this category of meringues is the marshmallow. frosting I have a little problem with this phrase marshmallow frosting because actual marshmallow in baking involves cooking sugar to a specific temperature and then whipping it.

You're actually whipping and aerating the sugar and coating it with gelatin—that's what gives it the chewy texture—but marshmallow frostings are usually made with meringue-style egg whites. The main difference is that they can have a higher proportion of sugar than a meringue frosting to make it a little more like a classic marshmallow, but egg whites. They are usually used just to provide a little glaze-style stability. When you look at a marshmallow frosting on a meringue frosting, they look very similar, but again, marshmallow style frosting can be a little sweeter and may have a more distinctive flavor. and it may not always be toasted, but neither is meringue, so both are very pliable, bright white, there are so many possibilities to do it, they look great piped and they definitely look great toasted too.

Let's talk about chocolate glazes. I put most of the chocolate. frostings in a category of their own, although of course you can always add melted chocolate or cocoa powder to another style of frostings like whipped buttercream etc., but I keep the chocolate itself as its own category, especially when the chocolate is the overwhelming base of the frosting. itself and the most common frosting or frostings you can make with chocolate that are known are ganache and ganache-based frostings, so a ganache, of course, is just chocolate and can be any type of drowned dark white milk chocolate in boiling cream and cream.

It somehow helps melt the chocolate and the whole mixture comes together to form this incredibly beautiful, smooth, silky filling frosting. There can be so many things that the main reason I put chocolate in a category of its own is because it behaves very differently than the base of other frostings, like eggs and butter, chocolate will harden very much as it continues to cool and set. , so glazes need to be formulated to make sure that they allow them to be fluid in a moment and just remember that it will harden more over time, if you put it in the refrigerator it will harden very, very quickly, so remember that you want to keep things at the right temperature and follow the visual cues of the recipes you are using many times.

Recipes will include things like telling you that the chocolate should be warm when you add it to something or that the chocolate should cool to room temperature or that the mixture should cool slightly. Oh, my cream is getting ready to boil here, it's very important to pay. Pay attention to all these things because they will affect the final consistency of the chocolate glaze. Okay, my cream is hot. I'm going to go ahead and pour it in or over my chocolate. There are different proportions of ganache depending on what you want. We're using it to make some ganache recipes very firm because you're using them to make candy or to make things like truffles, and other times the ganache will be very thin because you might use it almost like a glaze. and you want it to be poured over something and other times it's more of a medium consistency and it all depends on the type of chocolate you're using.

Dark chocolate will be firmer than chocolates that have higher amounts of sugar and dairy. they like milk and white chocolate and the amount of cream that you are using if you use the same amount of chocolate as the cream, it will be thinner, looser and more delicious, so once I poured the cream over this chocolate, I left it rest. for a good 15 20 actually, how long have I been talking? Probably closer to a minute and a half, but we want to let it sit here, which starts to melt the chocolate and starts to allow the mixture to come together, then one of my instructors at pastry school chef, Peter Grueling, taught me This: you start mixing in the center in kind of small circles.

It's a really lovely food moment because when it starts it looks like chunky milk at first, it doesn't necessarily look good at all. and then when you start to see the mixture come together in the center of the bowl, you can widen the circles to incorporate all of the chocolate, so look, it's starting to happen, so once we start to see darker chocolate in the center, that's the point at which we can widen our stirring a little bit and this technique just helps bring the ganache together.You're making a sort of emulsion, so it really helps bind the ganache in the best way, the best for the chocolate because chocolate is delicious. but it really has a mind of its own, so look, this is a good example of what I was saying, how it comes together in one place and the rest still looks like chocolate milk and then as we go on, this is just one of my favorite food moments because then everything starts to look beautiful, then we can start expanding those circles to make sure that everything is incorporated and the result should be really shiny, very smooth and very thick, oh yeah, as long as this ganache is hot, it will gonna. to be really smooth as it cools it will have a more spreadable consistency so this is the most important thing to remember with chocolate frosting.

I have a couple of chocolate frosting recipes that include chocolate and some other type of ingredient like this ganache and Um, people often write in the comments that it was impossible to spread that frosting, but most likely the frosting got too cold. Remember that the chocolate will continue to harden as it cools, so you really have to pay attention to the recipe and what kind of flow level and what texture does it need to be to use this ganache? You can let it cool until it has a spreadable consistency like I said or you can let it cool to room temperature and then it will be ready to blend. one of my favorite frosting alternatives because it's just ganache but it has that light, airy texture of something like buttercream, but it has all those beautiful bitter notes, all those chocolate notes, it's to die for.

I love it, love it, love it, so that's what we're going to do with this, I have some ganache that's already cooled to room temperature, we're going to whip it up, but first I want to talk about the latest style of frosting of chocolate which I simply call chocolate plus because chocolate. It has this miraculous ability to firm things up, it can really be used along with one or two simpler ingredients to make a very delicious glaze. One of my favorites is a delicious vegan frosting found at Food 52 that combines melted chocolate and pureed candy. potato or pumpkin to create this thick, creamy, incredibly smooth frosting that tastes super chocolatey but actually contains a little bit of veggies too, which is super clever and great.

One of my favorites is to mix sour cream with freshly melted chocolate, add a little sour cream to it. I have this in a recipe for my Milk Chocolate Caramel Crunch Cake in meal 52 it has a milk chocolate cream cheese frosting not a milk chocolate sour cream frosting you just mix the sour cream and chocolate together to To make a smooth glaze, the cold temperature of the sour cream begins to firm the chocolate immediately, making it a beautiful spreadable consistency, so when talking about the world of chocolate, remember that temperature is key, the type of chocolate you you're using matters and you'll always want to make sure you pay attention to the temperature and consistency you want it to be in the end so you don't let the chocolate get too cold or try to use it when it's done. too hot now let's beat that ganache, the consistency of the chocolate is very important, we've let this ganache cool to room temperature which means it's wonderfully thick and can hold a line when I run my spatula through it, still fluid and fluid.

As you can see, when I stop, there's still a little bit of movement, but this is the right consistency because we don't want it to get too firm or it won't reach the consistency that we want, so I just go. to continue again, I put this on a baking sheet like this, you don't have to, you can cool it in any type of container, I just do it to help it cool faster because there is more surface area, okay, I have my ganache in the bowl of my mixer and I'm going to put on the whisk attachment or the whisk attachment and we're going to start whisking this ganache on medium speed and what you're going to see is that the color of it is going to lighten.

Instead of looking like dark chocolate, it might look a little more like milk chocolate and once it lightens up a shade or two, that's a very good sign that it's ready to go. If you keep whipping it it will air out a lot and may get a little stiff so you want it to maintain a smooth frosting consistency when you start to have beater marks in the frosting and you can see where the whip was that's a good indicator of which is ready so thick so smooth because it's chocolate it's smooth so it's whipped ganache okay, I'm going to scrape this up because some of the darker chocolate, in fact, you can see it right here, didn't incorporate so we just want to make sure. everything has a uniform consistency, so we'll just scrape it all the way down, give it some creases, and then we can drop it on a cake and show the consistency of what it looks like.

Okay, let's put it on our little cake here and see. its consistency is really smooth, thick and spreadable, beautiful to pipe and again if you want an even silkier and less airy texture just don't beat it as far, keep it a little longer ganashi is ganashi, one word, I don't think it is , but You could turn it into something ganashi, okay, wow, it looks so good, this is the first one of these cakes that I just want to be okay, so this is our whipped ganache and we have all these chocolate style frostings, so remember him. main takeaways from chocolate style frostings temperature is all I already gave these points I think we are ready so it's time for whipped cream it's whipped cream o'clock I'm so excited let's make whipped cream let's talk about whipped cream , it's one of my favorite things in the world and one of the reasons it's my favorite is because it's so versatile that you've already seen me bake it to the next level, use it to make things like custards and thicken pie fillings and, of course, to decorate. the tops of cakes and all kinds of things, but whipped cream really is a simple and delicious frosting on its own, think of strawberry shortcake, while we don't necessarily think of whipped cream as frosting, that's what It is, you know?

We're putting something on our little cake to enjoy it and make it even sweeter and more delicious, so I want to talk about a few different things with whipped cream because the first thing is that while whipped cream is delicious and easy to make, it's not is. It keeps very well, so it's not necessarily a great make-ahead option, which is one of the reasons I think sometimes people don't use it in things like cakes. I love a whipped cream frosting on top of something like a sponge cake, it's very simple but it needs to be made just before you're ready to serve, it won't always hold up as well, it can go flat over time and it can also start to weep or separate. .

The first thing I want to talk about is how you can get whipped cream as far in advance as possible because I don't think a lot of people know that it's possible to whip cream, but whip it just below what you would call soft peaks and then it will hold. that way in the refrigerator for a while and you just need to give it a few hits with the whisk and it will be thicker and ready to go so in my bowl I have some cream that I started whipping a little earlier and as you can see which is still very thin, but is thicker than cream alone.

It's clearly been beaten, so I'm going to go ahead and finish beating it, yeah, look, we're already there, so it doesn't take long. all so that your whipped cream has the desired peaks that you want and that's the first thing I want to talk about is that advanced whipping cream preparation and how really important that is, but the next thing I want to talk about is stabilization. whipped cream because if you really can't move forward, I know the next question is whether it's ever possible to move forward and yes, there are some ways you can make whipped cream that's a little more stable and sturdy. common and also the one I like the least is gelatin.

Gelatin can be added, it can be melted and added to whipped cream and then as the whipped cream sets and stays cold, the gelatin will help maintain the structure of the whipped cream. I really do not know. I like this because I think it's a bit tricky, if you don't do it right you can taste the gelatin a little and it also means it's no longer vegetarian as gelatin is not a vegetarian friendly product and a lot of people who like it whipped cream, you know, you could be vegetarians, we want to make sure that we can make whipped cream that pleases everyone, so here are some things that I use to make naturally stable whipped cream and they make it stable in different ways.

The first is to use cream cheese in the whipped cream. I use this in my recipe which is on Food 52. It's a great recipe for my not-so-short strawberry shortcake that starts by whipping some cream cheese with powdered sugar, then adding cream and whipping. The cultures in the cream cheese help to thicken the mixture so it is an extra thick heavy duty whipped cream and it can keep very well in the refrigerator even in a baked good for several hours and is really delicious, another thing you can use as natural form. stabilize are things like nut butters nut butters the proteins they contain are also a really delicious addition to whipped cream, but they will make it a little thicker and mousse-like, although they won't completely stabilize the whipped cream because it is also adding fat it will make it thicker and it will definitely make it keep a little longer so if you wanted to frost something with pistachio whipped cream or hazelnut whipped cream or peanut butter whipped cream before your party and store it in the refrigerator.

I would probably survive on that extra loan. The last one you can add is freeze dried fruit or freeze dried fruit powder. This is something that really stabilizes it naturally, makes it really very thick and because those ingredients are very dry and fibrous, they really thicken the mixture while keeping it light and airy and it will stay stable in the refrigerator for quite a long time, so So those are some ways you can stabilize whipped cream that also adds delicious flavor and maybe even delicious color. to your whipped cream, which I also love, the other thing you can do with whipped cream and I swear this is the last thing I said, just five minutes.

The other thing you can do with whipped cream is add flavor. You can add melted chocolate. at the end of the process or you can add things like homemade fruit purees or jams, curds, all kinds of things like that that will add a delicious flavor and also color to your whipped cream, so I'm going to do that now. to add some raspberry jam to my whipped cream and the first thing to note is that I only whipped my cream to soft peaks. Look how it fell off my spatula because as I mix the jam it will continue to mix and whip the cream. and I don't want to end up with a cream that is too hard and resistant.

The other thing to remember is that if you add an ingredient like I do, this jam that is sweet, you want to make sure that you compensate by not sweetening the whipped cream too much, so the final whipped cream with jam is sweetened, slightly pink and It has a wonderful, really juicy fruit flavor. This is just one of the ways you can flavor your whipped cream, of course you can. I can use things like spices, citrus zest extracts, a little alcohol of your choice, tons of options and this will always be a crowd-pleasing frosting, so let's see how they look spread on some cakes before putting some of these in the cakes.

There are two things about whipped cream that I forgot to say before that are really important. The first is one of the other ingredients that I personally love to add to my whipped cream to add additional flavors, a little bit of thickness, extra creaminess, is other dairy products. like mascarpone cheese, I already mentioned cream cheese, but also ricotta is really delicious, they add a different character, a different texture and some different flavor notes and they also make it really creamy and delicious, so it's one of the things that I do more. mascarpone whipped cream here and we will show its beautiful consistency in a cake the other thing I wanted to remind everyone because I talked about how you can whip the cream so you can make it faster at the last minute the other thing is if you have ever gone over a little bit of whipped cream and it's no longer smooth and beautiful, but rather lumpy if you actually add a little more fresh cream from the cold cream from the refrigerator and just stir or fold it gently.

You can actually save on the whipped cream, so that's a good tip, just add a little more cream. When in doubt, add more cream, so this is the perfect thing to do. Let's look at the texture of some of these whipped creams on the cake. The first one I have is my whipped cream with jam, which I kept a little bit soft, but it's also soft because of the jam that we added, which will make it, you know, a little sweeter, which is why we love whipped cream frosting . although because it just doesn't get smoother, creamier, more delicious, yes, I love it, but now let's look at it next to this is the mascarpone cream.

You can now see bythe way I drop it, it's thicker and I love it. so that cheese not only adds, of course, the literal thickness, but the mouthfeel suddenly becomes incredibly creamy, it's as good as the best whipped cream you've ever tasted and finally we have the buttermilk whipped cream of peanuts and you. I can see that it is very thick, actually the inconsistency reminds me a little more of cream cheese frosting or sweetened condensed milk buttercream, it is very thick and that nut butter does an amazing job of thickening naturally, oh my goodness , and it smells so. peanut butter this peanut butter whipped cream you can do just that and put it in a pie crust and it's the best pie filling you've ever had.

It's so good, so we have all these whipped creams next to each other. I can see a little difference in the smoothness, but they all have the same thing, they have that delicious, fluffy, light, whipped cream, and it makes a great simple frosting. Let's talk about what the ideal consistency is for certain baking tasks. Of course, every frosting you really want to be smooth, you definitely want to use the word creamy a lot, I think that smoothness is definitely what we're looking for, but one thing I want to point out is that when you work with the frosting it should also be thick, it should be able to spread, it should be something that will hold its shape when placed if it is very runny, drippy or thin, it may have been heated too much, it may not have been whipped enough so make sure you are watching.

To get a nice thick icing, especially when working with one of the classic piping icing combinations, you often want a firmer consistency, especially when you want it to hold a specific shape. If it is too firm, it can also really hurt your hand. pipe, you can be squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and not much comes out of the tip. Also remember that as you pipe, the heat from your hand will continue to warm the frosting, so apply minimally, like just filling the bag as much as you can. you need and then refill it as needed so it doesn't get too hot while you work.

A wonderful pastry chef I know named Caitlyn Freeman once told me that the best consistency for frosting is when you make a smooth frosting. The cake has a mayonnaise consistency, this changed my life, we talked about it in the layer cake episode, but when the frosting is a little smoother, it is still thick enough to apply with a spatula, but a little smoother It removes some of the air bubbles, which helps make the frosting super smooth when applying. I mentioned temperature is important with piping, but really with all frosting it's important if the frosting is too hot or too cold, it could separate or alter the texture.

We'll talk about this in the errors section, but remember to try to keep the frostings at room temperature. and nice, spreadable airy frostings, like meringues and whipped cream, should be very light and fluffy, but totally smooth, no lumps allowed, and then as I mentioned, chocolate frostings will get firmer as they cool, so so make sure you're keeping an eye on your chocolate and keeping it the ideal consistency, in fact let's start with some chocolate frosting, this is just a little bit of ganache, not whipped ganache, but ganache that I cooled to room temperature and now it has a consistency nice to spread and as it continues to set on the cake it will become firmer but will always stay smooth and creamy and there really is nothing better than a chocolate frosting. this is exactly the ideal consistency.

It's spreadable, holds its shape but is also easy to work with. It is not too firm. Okay, now let's talk about the Other frostings are thicker, we want that mayonnaise consistency, which one is my mayonnaise and consistency. In fact, let's start with the mayonnaise-free consistency to show what I mean by that, so this is an Italian buttercream that's been sitting at room temperature. and on the one hand, it's very airy, maybe it needs some air removed, but on the other hand, because it's been at room temperature, it's hardened a little bit and it's important to show this because there's nothing wrong with this texture. this is a delicious frosting, it will be really tasty, but it will be very difficult for any baker to get it completely smooth, there are so many air pockets in there, all that, so heating it up and getting some of those air pockets. you end up getting a super smooth final consistency which is much easier to achieve and specifically when you spread it like this you can already see it's easier for me to make it look like there's almost no line because there's just less air it's smoother it's a bit warmer I've removed some of the air bubbles so we end up with a much smoother look and of course you can still throw it like that too which of course always looks delicious but what I mean is that that temperature It makes a big difference between this kind of airy, almost clumpy frosting and something that's definitely smoother as you apply it.

Softer and slightly smoother edges. This is especially important, like I said, when you want that super smooth frosting. Smooth side effect on a really important layer cake. This is a ganache cooled to the proper temperature until it can be spread and used as a glaze. This is Italian buttercream that I let cool so that's one of the reasons why it's so lumpy and this is. swiss buttercream, so normally they would look exactly identical and the only difference is that I heated this one up to make it smoother. Let's talk about the pipeline. The first thing I have here is some American buttercream in a piping bag and I already mentioned when.

I was talking about American buttercream, which is much thicker than many of these others and while you can still pipe it, as you can see here, it comes out of my piping bag fine, but you can see that when it comes off, it doesn't It's like that. It doesn't come off smoothly and this is something that would happen with any firmer icing, including one of these other

icings

that are great for piping, but that one has gone too cold and too firm, plus I'm actually almost running out of breath . Speaking of, that's an exaggeration, but it's very hard to squeeze this piping bag and I have very strong hands because I use the piping a lot and I'm really struggling because this is a very thick frosting and this is not how the piping should be.

Again, there's nothing wrong with using that piping glaze, it still works, but it can be hard on your hands. The main reason I mention this is because since American buttercream is the easiest, people often make it with kids and then put it in piping bags or give their kids spatulas to spread the frosting and, It's actually in some ways one of the hardest glazes to work with because it's so thick. Well, here I have the peanut butter whipped cream, and the main reason I wanted to show it off is because it's still very thick and beautiful, but it has a really smooth texture, so I can lift it up to get a nice little peak if I want. .

There are so many more options for what I can do with it and it's so much easier on my hands. squeezing and it basically comes straight out of the piping bag, so it's much easier and more pleasant to work with without any of these consistencies being bad, I just think it's worth talking about what the ideal consistencies are from the point of view of if you are . someone who's been tackling a project and you can't get it to look like it does in the picture, you can't get it to look the way you want, it could be because of one of these things you could have made the recipe is fine, but it might just It may take a little refinement to get it to the perfect point and the texture and consistency you want.

The next category we're going to discuss are frostings and frostings, and while these are a little different, they have a lot of overlap, so I group them together, I think of a frosting as something a little thicker, like spreading the frosting over the cinnamon rolls, and the glaze is something a little bit thinner, like glazing donuts, that's kind of the thing. The idea here is to start with a basic glaze. A basic frosting is one of my favorite things to make. I do it all the time. I make it for so many different things and I think a lot of times it doesn't get enough credit because you can do so many things and flavor it so many ways and there are so many interesting things you can do with a basic frosting.

In its simplest form, basic icing is powdered sugar, powdered sugar mixed with some type of liquid to form a soft dough that can be drizzled or spread. consistency what that liquid is it can be almost anything so of course it can be milk one of my favorite things to do with a frosting or frosting is actually cream it's the slightest change that makes it taste so incredibly rich and delicious that sometimes even seeing melted butter being used in a glaze or glaze, one of my other favorite things to do is using flavorful liquids, so whether it's homemade fruit purees, jams, fruit juices, there are definitely plenty of options and Of course, those will also give your frostings a really beautiful natural look.

Also the color, which I really love. The main thing to think about when making a frosting or frosting of this nature is what the end result will be. If you want to glaze something completely, you need it to be much thinner. versus something you can pipe or spray on that gives you more opaque coverage. Also remember that the liquid you are using will affect the amount you will need. 52 food recipes for a basic frosting, a basic fruit frosting, and a basic chocolate frosting, all of those recipes work, but they all have varying amounts of liquid because, depending on what you're using it for, if you're going to frost a cake, you'll need a different consistency than if you're icing donuts, cinnamon rolls, dipping the top of a brioche bun, something like that, the viscosity of the liquid itself will also affect how much you're going to consume. you're going to need, so you may need more cream than you would use with milk, for example, and similarly, if you're using a fruit puree that you've strained, you cook some strawberries and strain them to get the juice out, you may need less of that liquid. than what you would do if you were using whole fruit and some of that stringiness was there because that will also thicken the mixture as well as the consistency, it's really just a matter of mixing these ingredients together to combine so I'm going to do a basic glaze now with a little powdered sugar and milk starting by adding a little bit of milk and then I'll mentally show you the three ideal frosting consistencies.

Remember that if you add too much milk you can always add a little more icing sugar. to make it thicker again and if it remains too thick you can always add more milk. I knew I wanted this particular frosting to be pretty thin, so I was pretty generous and got the exact consistency I want. This is the type of frosting consistency you would use. Use it when you want a full coverage, kind of like a donut when you're icing a whole cake, things like that, you want it nice and thin like that so it flows easily and this is a great test, does it flow easily out of the mixer and does it? it does, the other indicator is that it should actually be pourable, you should be able to just transfer it to a liquid measuring cup or something and pour it exactly where you want it and a frosting that's thin enough will do it beautifully, so that way it'll be thin. consistency when you work with glazes, let's talk about medium consistency.

I think this needs a little more to have a medium consistency and that's what, as it is, is going to set because the icing sugar likes to form that skin. so remember if you don't keep it covered like I didn't hear on the set of baking it or not yeah you might need a little bit more so here's an example this also comes off the spatula easily but you can I see it's flowing more like clusters, it's flowing and breaking and that's a good indicator of a medium thickness that will be thick enough that we can funnel it and encourage it where we want it to go, but it will drip slowly.

It's an ideal consistency when you're making something like a drip cake and you want to have something that's fluid enough to fall over the sides but also firm enough that it falls slowly so you can be in control. I have a lot more information on these. consistencies and how to achieve them in my food article 52 on dripping consistencies and finally we have our thicker frosting. This is still perfect, although you can also dilute it a little. The idea with this is that it falls thick. the whisk and in big clumps like that and see how slowly it moves, that's an indicator of a good thick frosting, this frosting is almost more likely to be spread on something than it is to get wet with a tube, dipped in that kind of thing because it's actually more of a frosting-like consistency, so this is the kind of frosting texture you're looking for when you want to spread something on top of rolls.cinnamon or cakes of that nature and you want a nice thick coating, maybe even a little bit of a Wow texture, but whatever frosting you decide on, they are all super easy to make, there are so many flavor possibilities and remember that, At the end of the day, it's all about consistency because I want a nice thick frosting with some beautiful drips in this cake.

I'm going to use a medium thickness and I'm also going to frost it directly onto the stand that I want to serve it on because that will allow me to drop any of the drips where I can place the next frosting or frosting that I want. speaking is one that I think is very underused and perhaps also misunderstood: pouring fondant. Now people hear the word fondant and I think they think of those things on the outside of wedding cakes that are like edible clay and that's one guy. of fondant, but there are many other types and this one is very delicious, it is a pourable icing, very sweet, very smooth, easy to tint with different colors and evenly covers cakes in a similar style to the more well-known, I believe, fondant icing. mirror, but it's a It's much easier to make than mirror icing because it doesn't require gelatin and because it uses a lot of powdered sugar, it will still harden given enough time, so I really love poured fondant , is most commonly used for pettiformes, which is what I do.

I'm going to frost some today, but you can also use it to frost an entire cake. You can dip cupcakes in it. There really are a lot of things you can do and it is a delicious and easy frosting, very simple, sweet, easy to flavor and easy to color. so many good things about poured fondant, the main thing with poured fondant is to just mix everything together, it's very very simple, powdered sugar, a little corn syrup, a little water, it couldn't be easier to get it mixed together , you need a thermometer because temperature is key when When it comes to pouring fondant, I have my little probe thermometer here and now I keep an eye on the temperature.

If it's too thick, this frosting isn't going to glaze things evenly and if it's too hot it could lose its shine and it could also. If it's too thin, it could run off and not really set into the baked product, so the ideal temperature is It's around 100 degrees and you don't want to take it much higher, it can overheat again and again, I found it somewhere. between 90 and 100 is perfect so that it is thin enough to easily cover the petit fours but also thick enough that it is a little opaque on them once you have it at the right temperature.

I like to use a ladle to put it. about what I'm doing, but you can also pour it with a liquid measuring cup. I like the ladle, especially when I'm making a single batter because I can move in a circular motion around the item so I can start pouring it. the sides and I've placed the items on a rack, a cooling rack, so you can catch the parchment underneath to catch the excess fondant because again we can scrape it off the clean parchment and use it over and over again so I'm serving my fondant. You know, if it gets thicker, I'll just reheat it.

Make it thinner again and you can also double coat them, so if for some reason your consistency is too thin the first time and you feel like you want more, that's okay, just double coat them. , that's fine, but what you're looking for is to get even coverage when you use poured fondant and like I said, I love the advantage of it being so simple and easy to make, a little easier than mirror icing which is what We're going to make mirror glaze next, the last of our glazes and glazes that we're going to discuss and one of the most complex but really easy, really delicious and really fun.

The first step will be to heat our liquid ingredients, so here we have granulated sugar. a little bit of sweetened condensed milk and a little bit of corn syrup and we're heating it up slowly while stirring constantly trying to dissolve the sugar, that's really the whole point of heating it up at this stage, it's just dissolving the sugar and incorporating it once you've let's do. We're going to add our last two ingredients, which are white chocolate or sometimes mirror glazes are made with other types of chocolate as well as dark chocolate or milk chocolate, and we're also going to add gelatin, gelatin is the responsible for the mirror glaze going crazy. shiny and incredibly smooth, so beautiful, so wonderful, people really love the look of these frostings on cakes, once the sugar dissolves it's time to add the chocolate, we have turned it into real grass, I turned off the heat this pot and I'm going to add the chocolate with the pot off the heat and the residual heat in the pot and the sugar base should be enough to melt the white chocolate, but if for some reason it gets stiff or doesn't melt, what is it really?

Mine looks like it's going to, so you can put it back on low heat until everything is completely melted. I'll also add my bloomed gelatin and the water it was in. Once it's as combined as possible, go ahead and strain it. it just gets rid of any lingering bits of white chocolate that haven't melted, any bits of you know, gritty stuff that we wouldn't want in our mirror glaze. After you strain the mirror glaze, you can divide it into a few different bowls. Just so I can dye it different colors if you want, I'm going to do a couple different shades of pink because I have something pink today, so I have a little bit of gel food coloring on the bottom of both of them. of these bowls, but I'm also going to leave out some white chocolate once you have the mirror glaze in whatever colors you want, it's a waiting game for the mirror glaze to work properly, it has to be that way. with the ideal consistency, which is 90 degrees Fahrenheit, this is the perfect consistency for it to still be fluid, but for it to set up pretty quickly, especially when applied to something cold, I have a cake in the refrigerator right now, this one type of glaze works especially well. into something that is very soft on one side, so it's really great for things like mousse cakes, no-bake cheesecakes, anything that has that super soft side, if you make it into a layer cake, just make sure to give it a very soft touch. nice crumb coat very thoughtful and really covers everything because the mirror polish is really going to show off every ridge.

I'm not the most perfect when it comes to these types of glazes and I don't really care for some of that texture, but if you want that beautiful look that you get when you go to a bakery and they have those beautiful hors d'oeuvres in the case with a shiny mirror glaze all over, just aim for the smoothest look possible on your cake before applying the frosting I'm going to keep stirring them until they get the right consistency and as soon as they reach 90 degrees I'll take my cake out of the refrigerator and we'll be ready to serve when you frost something with mirror glaze.

I like to work around the edge first to make sure it's covered because it's always easier to add more on top and it will continue to flow down the sides. Wow, that looks great, doesn't it? So if necessary, you can slide it. Position your spatula to allow access to fall down the sides, but mine is an absolutely perfect consistency and I don't think I need to touch it at all, but if for some reason you don't have a layer on the sides, just use your spatula. to gently drag across the surface and that will move it to the sides a little bit and also level the top a little bit, that's how you glaze a cake with mirror glaze, as with any kind of baking mistakes that can happen when I'm making frostings, glazes and frostings, but a lot of them I've already covered in this episode because most of them have to do with consistency, so what I want to focus on now is showing you how to achieve the right consistency and also what to look for to know if you're sparing an uphill battle with your frosting and if it needs a little work, so let's start with aerated frostings first, things like meringue frostings, marshmallow frostings, this is also something that can just happen. with meringue, but here is a good example of frosting.

I'm not even going to be able to do it. I'll have to pour it over the cake to spread it. This is a meringue style frosting and it is very, very smooth, so soft. as I pour it on my cake here, it's actually spreading and again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with this, but this consistency wouldn't be good, that's not true, there's something wrong with this, I don't know why I'm trying to do it . Be so kind to this frosting, it's a mistake, but the main thing is that it won't hold its shape, it won't hold its shape when it's placed in particular, so it's very important that when you see something like this, it's usually a sign of the meringue.

It just needs more whipping, it could also mean that you are trying to make a meringue in an environment that is very humid or has some moisture or fat in it, but usually just whipping it a little more will give it the ideal consistency. Really, very fluffy and spreadable and pipettable and look how much more volume it has and I would like to hold it on my spatula like this instead of having to literally pour the frosting and they would both toast nicely but one is much easier to spread. and much more stable to use as a frosting, so keep whisking and make sure when you make meringue-based frostings that you also take the time to clean your mixer bowl with a little vinegar or lemon juice, use your cream of tartar , use everything. those things we talked about in the meringue episode to make sure you get all the volume and if it's still soft like that before you try anything else, just keep beating, keep beating at a higher speed even if it's longer than you like. indicated the recipe.

You may need a little more time with the buttercreams now. One of the biggest problems I see has to do with the frosting once it hardens. I see the airy and kind of thick. This is almost, I mean, thick is a bad word because it's still soft, if you put it in your mouth you won't feel any physical chunks, but this is what happens when a buttercream is left to sit for too long and it starts to harden. and it no longer has that smooth consistency and I showed you this. a little early, but the easiest way to demonstrate it is to just try to do a pass of icing like this without any adjustments and you can see how rough and rough it looks, but if you reconstitute the icing, you just apply a little bit of heat. to the bowl and there are two different ways to do it, which I'll talk about momentarily where you apply a little bit of heat to the bowl, let the fat inside soften and then start blending again with the other ingredients.

It starts to come together and become smooth again, but as it whips again, it also takes away that heat, so you can heat it up a little bit too to reduce things like air bubbles, get a smoother frosting, but it's also about to regain that consistency. It should be, it's also important to know because you can make buttercreams ahead of time, you can freeze them, most of them freeze very, very well, so you can get a head start on your big baking project by making the frosting ahead of time, but already If you need to reconstitute it, there are two ways to reconstitute it, the easiest is to take out your friend's kitchen torch and apply a little heat to the side of the bowl, but if you don't have a kitchen torch, you can also put the glaze on. a heatproof bowl and place it over a pot of boiling water just for a few moments, 10 seconds at a time, just to apply a little heat, then start mixing it by hand once you think you've softened it a little.

I can go back to the mixer and beat until it's reconstituted and again, this is really important because look at the difference, this is the same Italian buttercream frosting, but look at the difference, this reconstituted frosting when I spread it just once is a lot. smoother than the frosting next to it, it's very important to know what you're looking for consistency-wise because if you make a mistake, you may be able to fix it before you're even ready to use the frosting. Thank you very much for joining me. For this especially sweet episode of Bake it up a notch where we take a deep dive into all things frosting, frosting, and frosting, this is a really fun episode and all of these delicious recipes are available on Food 52 and I want to see what you're making.

So be sure to tag me with Emic Dowel on Instagram or tag Food52 and use the hashtag “Heal It A Little.” Be sure to continue leaving me comments about things you'd like to see in future episodes and any questions you have. They could appear in one. of our next little episodes I can't wait to see what you bake and until then I wish you lots of happy baking. He looks very happy, doesn't he? That's right. This is my best nap.