Category Archives: Frostings

10/19/11

Making Stabilized Whipped Cream

Sure, there are plenty of purists out there who don’t believe cream should be adulterated with stabilizers. I’m with them…some of the time. The rest of the time I’m worried about my whipped cream holding up for long periods, on warm days or in the freezer. Then I’m looking for a little somethin’-somethin’ to help me get by.

That something is gelatin. Just a little will do wonders for your whipped cream’s stability, and honestly, it barely impacts the taste or texture. Start be melting a little gelatin. For 2 cups of cream you’ll start with a 1/2 teaspoon of powdered gelatin and a little ice water. Yes, these are my little silicone Trudeau bowls again. I love them, that’s why I plug them. They’re wonderful:

Pour about two tablespoons of the ice water into the gelatin and let it sit for five minutes (no stirring).

What you’re doing here is creating a little protein gel. See?

To use it you need to melt it. Zap your little silicone Trudeau bowl — if you have one — in the microwave. Use short full-power bursts of 5 seconds. That should be all you need to liquify it.

With that in hand, whip 2 cups cream.

Partially. Get it part-way thickened, then add your sugar…about 1/4 cup for this much cream.

Whip it for another ten seconds, than add any flavoring you want. Here I’m putting in about 3 tablespoons of espresso syrup.

Whip another ten seconds (you’ll probably be getting close to soft peaks by now) and pour in the melted gelatin.

Whip the cream the rest of the way, somewhere between soft and stiff peaks, according to your liking.

You’ll need to use this within about half an hour, which is when the gelatin will start setting up, making smooth spreading more difficult. Consume any leftovers on scones.

Filed under:  Pastry, Stabilized Whipped Cream, Stabilized Whipped Cream | 10 Comments
04/13/11

Whipped Ganache

Here’s another buttercream alternative that’s extremely easy. It’s standard ganache, a 50-50 combination of chocolate and heavy cream by weight — only whipped! You start by making the ganache, any quantity you wish, you can use either standard or white chocolate.

Cool it using an ice bath…

…not to the point that it’s firm. You want it cool so it doesn’t separate in the mixer, but not clay-like. Sorta pudding-like, like this:

Then just put it in a mixer fitted with a whip…

And whip until it’s frosting consistency, about 30 seconds to a minute.

Easy no? But be careful not to over-whip it, which is easy to do. Like whipped cream, it can easily turn to butter — chocolate butter. It’s nice on toast, but not very useful as a frosting or filling.

Whipped ganache is also temperature-sensitive, so be careful of that. It’ll want to firm up on you, especially in a cool environment, so if you’re planning on using it as a frosting, apply it promptly.

Filed under:  Pastry, Whipped Ganache | 33 Comments
04/11/11

“Heritage” a.k.a. “Boiled” a.k.a. “Flour” a.k.a. “Cooked Flour” a.k.a. “Gravy” a.k.a. “Cloudburst” Frosting

Did I forget to mention it’s also called “mock buttercream”? This is something that a handful of readers have asked me about lately. It was little Jo’s turn to submit a cake for the cake wheel at last Friday’s fish fry, so it seemed like a good time to make it.

But just what is “heritage” a.k.a. “boiled” a.k.a. “flour” a.k.a. “cooked flour” a.k.a. “gravy” a.k.a. “cloudburst” frosting? Well let’s just say that if you happened to be a housewife during World War II, it was a recipe that allowed you to deliver the birthday cake you promised to your seven-year-old without using up the entire month’s butter and sugar ration.

It is a preparation that answers the age-old question: how do you make an icing and/or filling that’s thick, rich and spreadable without using lots and lots of expensive butter? And it does so ingeniously. In place of butter or meringue (which would have required equally hard-to-find eggs) it employs a cooked flour-and-milk goo, a sort-of béchamel sauce, to give the mixture body. The result is more than an ersatz frosting, it’s a stunningly silky and delicious low-cost reproduction of real buttercream — with half the butter and not terribly much sugar. It’s so good that it has adherents to this day.

So how do you make “heritage” a.k.a. “boiled” a.k.a. “flour” a.k.a. “cooked flour” a.k.a. “gravy” a.k.a. “cloudburst” frosting? Just like this. Put four tablespoons of flour (1 1/4 ounces) into a small saucepan.

Slowly add a cup of whole milk…

…whisking all the while.

Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches the boil. After about 30 seconds of full boil, the mixture is as thick as it’s going to get. Allow it to cool about ten minutes…

…then apply some plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the mixture. Let it cool another fifteen minutes or so, then put the saucepan in the refrigerator. Let it cool down for about an hour.

At the end of that time, it should take on a consistency about like this:

Kinda yucky? Stay with me, it gets better. Combine two sticks (8 ounces) of butter and 7 ounces of granulated or powdered sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the beater. Back in the day, truly resource-poor homemakers used half shortening. Unless you’re a stickler for authenticity, there’s no need to do that.

Beat about 4 minutes until very light and fluffy.

With the mixer running, beat in the milk mixture.

Beat for about another minute until you have a sweet and silky faux buttercream (if it looks curdled or broken, follow the golden rule of buttercream and just keep beating until it’s where you want it). Beat in two teaspoons of vanilla extract, or the flavoring of your choice.

Does it taste exactly like buttercream? Darn close. And while it does have a vague “cooked” flavor to it, it doesn’t have the floury, cereal taste you’d expect. For those who find real all-butter buttercream too much to stand, you might be surprised at how much you like this. Mrs. Pastry, who can’t take full-on buttercream, loves this.

On the down side, it doesn’t spread on as smoothly as buttercream. But if you can live with that, you’ll have a new weapon in your arsenal to satisfy kids and/or grownups who prefer a less rich icing or filling. Have fun — and buy bonds!

Filed under:  Pastry, “Heritage” a.k.a. “Boiled” a.k.a. “Flour” a.k.a. “Cooked Flour” a.k.a. “Gravy” a.k.a. “Cloudburst” Frosting | 73 Comments
03/29/11

Making Classic Frosting

This classic American-style frosting can be made in chocolate or vanilla (or just about any other flavor or color you can imagine). It’s a very handy thing to have in your repertoire for those times when a buttercream simply won’t work. On hot days, for example, a frosting will hold up quite a bit better than a buttercream. Or for a kids’ birthday party (I find that a lot of kids prefer the sweetness of frosting to the richness of buttercream). The recipe is quite simple. For a chocolate frosting you’ll need:

10 ounces (2 1/2 cups) powdered sugar
2 ounces (1/2 cup) cocoa powder
4 ounces (1 stick) soft butter
4 ounces (1/2 cup) heavy cream (room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla

First, sift the cocoa and powered sugar together.

Next combine the cream and vanilla.

Put the butter in the bowl of your mixer fitted with the paddle (beater) and beat it.

Add about a third of the cocoa mixture and start to stir the mixture on medium-low.

Next add about a third of the cream mixture and continue to stir. Keep going like that until everything is combined (mixing the ingredients in stages like this helps keep it from forming lumps). Scrape the bowl as needed.

Before you know it you’ll have a pipe-able frosting. If it’s too thick, add more cream, if too thin, add more sugar. For a vanilla version, swap out the cocoa for more powdered sugar and cut the cream by three tablespoons (cocoa powder is absorbant). Easy, no?

Use this for cupcakes or double the recipe and use for a layer cake. You’ll have some leftover, but heck, who doesn’t like to have a little extra chocolate frosting hanging around?

Filed under:  Classic Cake Frosting, Pastry | 16 Comments
10/28/10

Making Cream Cheese Frosting

This really couldn’t be much easier, but heck, a couple of photos can’t hurt, right? Just combine all your ingredients in the bowl of a mixer with the paddle attached…

…and beat for about 45 seconds until the frosting is smooth and uniform.

You might need to scrape the bowl once to make sure all the ingredients are well combined. If you notice small lumps — and if you look closely you can make out a few — just keep beating. For a completely smooth frosting, a food processor works even better.

Filed under:  Cream Cheese Frosting, Frostings, Pastry Components | Leave a comment
10/26/10

Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Cream cheese’s gaminess and gumminess make it a rather odd base for a frosting. Even so, that flavor has become the classic accompaniment to an American carrot cake, and who am I to argue? I just prefer mine cut with butter, that’s all. Is that so wrong? Combine these ingredients in a mixer fitted with a whip:

12 ounces cream cheese
8 ounces soft butter
8 ounces powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip on medium-high speed until smooth. Depending on the temperature of the butter, this frosting can get little lumps in it. Persist in whipping the frosting until they’re gone. Alternately, prepare it in a food processor for a perfectly smooth consistency.

Filed under:  Cream Cheese Frosting, Frostings, Pastry Components | 2 Comments
05/18/10

How to Make Chantilly Cream

Chantilly cream is a tremendously useful variation on standard whipped cream. Not only is it sweeter and more aromatic thanks to the added sugar and vanilla, it holds up much better than ordinary whipped cream. If you imagine an individual bubble in a whipped cream foam, that bubble’s skin is made of water reinforced by a network of proteins and fat molecules (lipids). When heavy cream is first whipped up, those bubbles are reasonably stable. As time passes, however, the water starts to drain away and/or evaporate and the bubbles start to pop. Sugar stabilizes the whip by combining with the water in the cream to form a syrup. Being thicker than water, the syrup is less inclined to drain away. And because sugar is so good at attracting and holding on to moisture, it prevents it from evaporating. The trick is adding the sugar after the foam has begun to form, so the milk proteins have time to uncoil and form their bubble-making network.

Make Chantilly cream by putting a cup of chilled heavy cream in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whip. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and begin to whip.

When the mixture begins to form a foam, but is still fairly soupy — a bit shy of the “soft peak” stage — start sprinkling in an ounce of sugar. Powdered (confectioner’s) sugar is best because it dissolves more readily, but regular crystallized sugar will work also.

Whip another 30 seconds or so to soft peaks, or keep going to firm peaks, to a consistency that resembles buttercream. At this stage it can be piped, used to fill meringues or profiteroles, or used as a cake icing.

Chantilly cream can be flavored with all sorts of extracts (citrus are especially nice) as well as liqueurs like Grand Marnier or Cointreau.

Filed under:  Chantilly Cream, Chantilly Cream, Pastry Components, Whipped Cream Frosting (Chantilly Cream) | Leave a comment
02/23/10

How to Make Easy Chocolate Frosting

This preparation occupies a sort of middle ground between a coating and a frosting. Whatever you call it, it’s good. Begin by putting your chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. This is mostly milk chocolate chips, though since I had a handful (about an ounce) of bittersweet chips in a mostly-empty bag, I threw those in too.

Apply ten seconds of full power, then stir. Apply another ten seconds. Stir. Continue like this until your chocolate looks about like so, then stop. Stir it the rest of the way until it’s completely smooth. It’ll take a few minutes.

When the chocolate is completely melted, let it cool until it’s barely warm to the touch. Which is to say, about as cool as you can get it while still having it flow. Put it in a bowl with the soft butter…

…and beat about a minute until smooth, scraping once or twice. Now here I should mention that since I had no heat in my house this weekend, my implements and bowl were very cold. The upshot was that some of the chocolate solidified the instant it hit the metal, creating chunks of solid chocolate in the frosting. What did I do? I soaked a small kitchen towel in hot tap water and applied it to the sides of the bowl as the machine ran. The small amount of heat warmed the mixture enough that the lumps melted out. Since that action also warmed (and thinned) the frosting, I beat it an extra minute to cool it down.

Then I promptly applied to the cake. It firmed immediately in my 50-degree house.

Normally I like to work with frozen cake layers. However for reasons that should be fairly obvious right now, you can’t do that with this kind of frosting. Have the layers at or close to room temperature as you build the cake, and apply the frosting quickly since it will set up fast…especially in a house with a broken furnace.

Filed under:  Chocolate "Bar" Frosting, Frostings, Pastry Components | 2 Comments
02/23/10

Easy Chocolate Frosting Recipe

This is based on a simple chocolate frosting that appears in the Cake Bible. The ingredients are essentially just chocolate and butter. What’s nice about this approach, aside from its amazing simplicity, is it’s texture which is quite rigid, much like having a chocolate bar draped over a chocolate cake. It’s the perfect thing for little 6-year-old Josephine, who loves chocolate in solid form but is suspicious of creamy frostings. Don’t ask me why, kids are like that.

For all those tempted to turn this frosting into a chocolate epicure’s delight, I’ll warn you now that while you can substitute a proportion of darker, higher quality chocolates for the cheaper milk chocolate chips, the effect will be an even harder, more rigid exterior once it firms. Too much dark chocolate and you won’t be able cut the cake without having half the coating shatter, especially if you lay it on thick. The pedestrian approach, trust me, is the way to go. The formula is:

8 ounces (two sticks) softened butter
24 ounces (two bags) milk chocolate chips

To prepare the frosting, pour the chips into a microwave-safe bowl and melt by zapping the frosting for 10 seconds, stirring, and applying another 10-second zap until the chocolate is mostly melted. Stir it for several minutes, using the residual heat to completely melt the chips. Allow the chocolate to cool until it is barely warm to the touch. Combine both the butter and the melted chocolate in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat together for about a minute or more until the frosting is smooth. Apply to a cake before it starts to firm. The recipe may well make more than you need. Cupcakes anyone?

Filed under:  Chocolate "Bar" Frosting, Frostings, Pastry Components | Leave a comment