March 21, 2016 - 4:26pm
Cake icing
hello forum.
I had a bakery frosting yesterday that was amazing and I would really like to come close to reproducing it. As I am more of a savory bread baker than sweets baker, I need help. I will do my best to describe it and hope someone knows and could provide me with a recipe. It was on a white cake with some coconut grated on it but not a lot.
color: white, pretty white. Not yellow at all
texture: medium to medium firm while cold but not rock hard. definitely softer when at room temp
flavor: very mild, not very sweet, not very anything. No real vanilla flavor, like I said, very mild flavor maybe heavy cream flavor? Maybe a thickened heavy cream, if there is such a thing In baking?
any help wil be greatly appreciated!
Share
That really could describe many different buttercream frostings. Keep in mind that what passes for buttercream in many bakeries is just shortening mixed with powdered sugar. Very sweet and tends to be a bit crisp on the outside. Bleh.
When you use real butter, it tends to turn mostly white as you whip air into the butter. It will never be totally white, but if you don't have something white to compare it with, it passes. The whitest real buttercream is mixed with a meringue, lightening it still further.
Google on "Italian Meringue Buttercream".
Good points. It may have been butter? Im nearly certain that it was not a shortening based frosting and why I'd like to reproduce this one.
Butter would be my guess. However, there are some cooked flour frostings that incorporate cream (and butter), so that's a possibility. However, these frostings aren't as smooth in appearance as buttercreams. All of these frostings can be (if you choose) much less sweet than the powdered sugar frostings (often called American buttercreams).
The bakery would probably tell you, if you asked.
I've used this myself plenty of times
a decent recipe can can be found on allrecipes
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/18041/stabilized-whipped-cream-icing/
Tatyana
First of, butter can be very white if you are using a butter that is free from any food-grade coloring. Also, a pure buttercream frosting tend to be very buttery in taste.
If its whipped cream, then it is completely white and tend to get soft when left at room temperature after a while. It has a pleasant creamy taste and most of all....appetising. To stabilise this kind of frosting, you can choose to add a tbsp of skimmed milk powder, egg white powder, icing sugar or gelatin liquid but most of all, freeze the stainless steel bowl and balloon whisk for at least 30 mins prior to the whipping process. Make sure the whipping cream is under 4 degree celsius.
Another type of frosting would be a very popular frosting among all Asian cake shops, the non-dairy whipping cream. Same whipping method as the dairy whipping cream but this one is a lot more stable and comes with a cheaper price tag too.
By all mean, if the shop is customer friendship, you could ring them and find out the exact frosting. I guess it would make your life easier.
p/s: When buying whipping cream, make sure the fat content is 34-35% fat! Please let me know if you need more help.
Hope it helps,
Sandy
Another possibility is cream cheese instead of shortening or butter.
I did not pick up any cream cheese flavor. It was mild, cream flavor.
it's whipped cream and let's talk about whipped cream at the moment :) and here's what you could try to do:
This amount is usually enough for a 2 layer of 7 inch, round cake with some borders pipings.
500 ml Whipping Cream (35% fat)
120 gm Icing Sugar (sifted)
1 tbsp. Skimmed milk powder (optional)
Method:
I highly recommend on using Elle & Vire whipping cream as the end result is satisfactory. They have a video on you tube on how to make whipping cream and I find it extremely useful.
with powdered sugar, lemon juice and zest.
... without photos - even then...
In the commercial bakery world there are 1000's of "frostings" that bear no resemblance to what you can make at home (or in the small bakery that actually cares) Of-course I don't know if the place you bought it from is such a place or not..
My generic "frosting" (Typically on/in Carrot cakes) is 30g softened unsalted butter, 60g cream cheese (ie. Philadelphia when its on offer) and 230g icing sugar. Add in vanilla or a citrus extract/zest, depending on application. This is fairly neutral, but sweet in flavour until you add in the vanilla, etc. This is made in a stand mixer with the paddle/flat beater - once incorporated, it's beaten at full speed for a minute which incorporates some air which whitens it and takes away any buttery yellow.
-Gordon
Wow, lots of great input! Is icing sugar, powdered sugar?
Yes - Icing Sugar is very finely powdered sugar. Also called confectioner's sugar in some places.
-Gordon
i called the bakery where the cake was made, Wegmans. They said the cake it is called "Ultimate white cake with white frosting" they also have told me that they use their premium butter cream frosting which they add a little coconut extract to.
After reading all your replies and some from another site I am thinking of starting by using tgraysons suggestion of a meringue based butter cream. The one recipe I looked at was boiling water and sugar to 230*f and slowly incorporatping it into whipped egg whites. At least I'll start there and see how that taste and then try others suggested here.
I really appreciate everyone taking the time to reply and giving input, this is a great forum!
Rose Levy Beranbaum, a very well-known cookbook author, has a version of this frosting that she calls "Mousseline buttercream". You can find a recipe online. It probably won't vary too much from what you found. Her frostings tend to not be very sweet.
You probably need to add some sort of flavoring, or you will taste butter. The coconut extract might be enough, but some people add some form of liqueur. I'm partial to kahlua.
i will check out that recipe. Thanks for your help, you were on to the correct frosting right away. I can't wait to try it.
otherwise known as Italian meringue. You add the boiling sugar solution (at 118°C/244°F) to whipped whites with the mixer still running. It's not that easy to do first time and do be aware that you have a pan of boiling, scalding stupidly hot 118°C sugar solution... Lookup recipes for how to do it - you need to leave the mixer running for a long time after adding the sugar into the whites.
It's not what I'd cover a regular cake with, however it will be glossy and sugary...
Buttercream is simply butter and icing sugar - possibly with some vanilla - it's a very popular cake covering and easy to make too.
-Gordon
Buttercream and icing sugar is merely one type of buttercream and no decent pastry chef would make it. It's inevitably very sweet and gritty. The better buttercreams do not use icing sugar and incorporate some sort of egg.....whole eggs, yolks only, or egg whites. Some recipes used cooked flour. A sugar syrup is typically used, which avoids any grittiness.
This is the recipe I intend on starting with for Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting
400g granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
8 large egg whites
1 pound/454g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring sugar and 1/2cup water to a boil.
While your sugar mixture is heating, place egg whites in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. When your sugar reaches about 230 degrees on the candy thermometer, begin to whip eggs whites at medium-high speed until stiff but not dry; do not over beat!Once your sugar reaches 240 degrees, remove it from heat immediately, and with the mixer running, add it to your egg whites in a stream and beat on high speed. Be careful, it's very hot! Continue to whip your meringue until no heat remains in the bowl. You can place your hands along the sides of the bowl to check - it should feel like it's at room temperature. Now, with the mixer still running, add your butter bit by bit, beating until spreadable, 3 to 5 minutes; then, beat in vanilla. If your buttercream appears curdled, keepbeating until smooth. Makes appx. 6 cups.
When adding the syrup to the egg whites, if the stream hits the beaters, it will be flung against the side of the bowl and harden. You might lose a significant portion of the syrup. You should aim for the space between the beaters and the wall of bowl.
This can be a challenge, which is why Beranbaum recommends adding some syrup with the mixer off, then beat on high speed for 5s, turn the mixer off and add more syrup, beat for 5s, etc.
I'm not recommending one way or the other.
Great tips tgray, thanks.
Wow.......... The Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting did not turn out exactly like the one I was trying to replicate. It turned out wayyyy better! i only bake sweets now and again, so nailing this out the gate was very satisfying. I can not stress enough how light years better this is then conventional cake frosting made with powdered sugar and crisco/butter. One of the reason I loved the Wegmans cake and frosting was it wasn't that Crappy frosting and wasn't very sweet at all.
This really didn't take that much more effort than making the other crap and the results are well worth the extra effort. Highly recommend giving this a try!
Congrats!
FYI, succeeding on the first try has never prevented me from screwing something up later. :-)
In retrospect, it seems unlikely that a supermarket chain would attempt such a labor intensive frosting; I bet that they have some mix that they incorporate with butter or even cream. For instance, you can buy powdered meringue. So maybe it's not surprising that you can put together a better frosting using fresh ingredients.
tgray, thanks for your help, also this forum and the others that chimed in on my post!
If anyone is looking for a less sweet frosting that taste amazing , this is beyond a winner.