WFMW: Cake Decorating

We’re going to take a detour today from reflections on family and children and life in general. Because I have some wisdom to share on the subject of cakes, cake decorating and icing. This has been a source of frustration to me for so many years that when the answers finally began to be revealed this week, I knew I had to share. So if you’re not interested in cakes and cake decorating, come back tomorrow. 🙂 But judging from the response the last time I brought up the subject, it’s a matter of interest to you folks!

 #1. The Recipe. You know—the icing that makes you want to dive into the bowl and eat till you get sick to your stomach? That one. I don’t know who came up with it originally, but I found it from someone named Bunnywoman:

 BUTTERCREAM ICING
From: Bunnywoman

1 cup Crisco shortening
1 cup butter (can use salted or unsalted)- softened
1/3 cup luke warm water
1 tsp popcorn salt
1 tsp clear vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp butter extract
2 lb. bag of powder sugar

**** I recommend using a stand-up mixer (Kitchen Aid) for this.****

Cream together the butter and Crisco until nice and fluffy. (I use speed 6 for this on my KA.)
Measure out the luke warm water in a standard measuring cup and dissolve the popcorn salt in this water. I then add the flavorings to the cup. Stir it up well with a spoon.
Turn your mixer speed to the lowest possible setting and add in the powdered sugar slowly. Alternate back and forth with the water mixture. Keep the mixer on low until all liquid and powdered sugar are combined. Once combined then turn the mixer up a notch and mix well. Approximately 2-3 minutes.
Heavy cream or milk can be substituted for the water too. This will make for a smoother, creamier frosting. Refrigerate your cake if you use these. You can mix and match flavorings in my recipe. I have done all sorts of different combinations. I love Lorann Flavorings in this too!!!!! They have over 30+ different flavors!!!!!
This will make what I call between thin to medium consistency icing. I can frost my cakes just fine with this and do simple borders as well.
To make roses: If I have to make a ton of roses (and only roses) I use the same recipe above, BUT I half everything. Meaning, ½ cup of shortening, ½ cup butter etc. etc. etc. Instead of 1/3 cup water……. I add ¼ cup water. This will give you a stiffer icing, but not so stiff it will make your hand feel like it is gonna fall off!!!!

Icing recipes are all the same in essentials. What makes this one different? THE SALT. I should have thought of this myself. I learned from my mother that a bit of salt adds zest to something sweet, and without it, every sweet thing tastes flat.

Now, women get tremendously bent out of shape over icing. If you want perfectly white icing, this isn’t the recipe. Butter has a bit of color. Unsalted butter is paler than salted, so you can try that and see if it’s white enough for you. For my part, I’m not into white cakes, so I don’t even bother with clear vanilla. Regular vanilla works fine.

#2. For my Wilton class last week, I went ahead and made the Wilton recipe, which tastes eh-okay, but not worth diving into the bowl. To me, it’s not worth the carbs. (After ten years of PCO and borderline gestational diabetes, I have a new philosophy on sweets: If I’m going to blow the carbs, it had better be worth it!) However, I will say that the Wilton recipe does a spectacular job for decorating. It stands up nicely and holds the shapes beautifully.

3. This weekend, I made a cake for a dinner at my cousins’ house (for those who read Monday’s gratitude list, they’re the ones with the treehouse and the zipline). And I decided to try using Bunnywoman’s recipe for decorating as well as frosting. I had to add quite a bit of powdered sugar, and it didn’t hold the shape quite as well as the Wilton recipe, but for my purposes it did just fine:

#3. Cake decoraters also get persnickety about food coloring. They suggest using the concentrated colors that come in little screw-top cans. You probably have to use those to get specialty colors and deep colors, but if you’re not in those two situations, the basic food coloring drops work just fine. You just have to back off on your water/milk to leave room for the extra liquid. And they don’t taste bad (refer to #2)!

#4. Speaking of the amount of liquid…Consistency is the key to the whole works. Icing is the right consistency for making roses, shells etc. when you can tap it with your finger and a bit sticks to your skin. This isn’t perfect, but it gets close. If the shapes aren’t holding, add a bit more sugar; if it’s killing your hand, or the strings of icing break in the decorating process, add a bit of corn syrup. (Like a couple of drops.)

#5. To frost the cake, it has to be a little thinner. One of my big problems through the years has been getting frosting on cakes without pulling crumbs off. My friends Mary and Amy shared their wisdom, and I put it together and came up with this: When the cake comes out, leave it in the pans for ten minutes. EXACTLY ten minutes.  After ten minutes, turn the layers out onto plastic wrap or tin foil and wrap them up tight, then stick them in the freezer. Once they’re good and frozen, pull them out and frost them. It doesn’t eliminate crumbs, but it does help. And wrapping during cooling also helps keep the cake moist.

Well, I’m getting close to novella length on this rambling, unpolished opus, so I’ll finish with a simple encouragement: the hard part of cake decorating is everything I’ve outlined here. I’ve been astonished at how easy the decorating part really is. Grab a Wilton class book off the shelf at Hobby Lobby or Michael’s and try it at home. The class is great, but you can pick up a lot of the basics on your own.

Go forth and enjoy!