{"id":2493,"date":"2010-06-04T10:13:26","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T15:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=2493"},"modified":"2010-06-04T10:13:26","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T15:13:26","slug":"peony-rants-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2010\/06\/peony-rants-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Peony rants on cake icing recipes"},"content":{"rendered":"

After I posted my Seven Quick Takes at Jen’s, I followed one of the links back to this post<\/a> at “So Much to Say, So Little Time”, in which the writer mentions that her Wilton instructor was recommending canned icing.
\nI personally think that the Wilton instructor deserves the stocks or the ducking stool for that idea, so in the comments section I did a little ranting and raving. (At this moment it’s still in the moderation queue.) Here’s what I posted:<\/p>\n

Here via 7 quick takes, and your \u201cWilton instructor\u201d is full of something inedible. And I say this as an alumnus of the course as taught at Michael\u2019s! Canned icing is not only disgusting tasting, it\u2019s not the right consistency for cake decorating! Ick!
\nThere\u2019s three kinds of cake icing used in the Wilton classes: buttercream (the \u201cbasic\u201d), royal (dries hard, used for elaborate make-ahead flowers) and fondant (that dough-like stuff often purchased in packages). I don\u2019t think they get to royal and fondant until Classes 2 and 3.
\nButtercream: Sometimes in the class they recommend that you use buttercream icing made entirely from shortening because it\u2019s cheap, stable, and reusable. I wouldn\u2019t use an all-shortening icing on a real cake, though, unless you were planning to serve it in Iraq or someplace like that.
\nFor an actual cake, here\u2019s a good basic recipe:
\nWilton Buttercream<\/a>; I recommend the following adjustments:
\n\u2013 This recipe makes just enough to ice and lightly decorate a standard cake recipe. You won\u2019t have much room for error (and won\u2019t have enough to make roses or basketweave.) If you double it, you\u2019ll have plenty and you can freeze the rest.
\n\u2013 Beat the butter and flavorings together first and just a dab of the milk. Don\u2019t bother with the \u201ccolorless\u201d vanilla unless you want a truer white icing.
\nAdd the sugar. I have the best results with Domino\u2019s. The longer you slowly beat your icing, the better it will taste. (Stand mixer helps.)
\nSlowly add your milk a tablespoon at a time, watching the consistency of the icing.
\n\u2013 I don\u2019t like using the corn syrup unless I am making thin icing for writing.
\n\u2013 The higher the fat content of the milk, the better the recipe will turn out. Half and half (the real stuff, not soy) or even cream is great.
\n\u2013 Shortening makes the recipe stable, stiffer, and a purer white. Butter makes it tastier, a little softer, and a less pure white. You can adjust your ratio \u2014 so if you double, you could use 1\/2 cup shortening and 1 1\/2 cups butter. Keep the heat of the day in mind, and the fact that butter has more water in it than shortening. I wouldn\u2019t use all butter until you\u2019ve had more practice.
\n\u2013 Consistency is important! As you beat your icing, watch its consistency. Stiff icing is about the consistency of Spackle. If you\u2019re making roses, this is what you want, so when you attain STIFF consistency, take some out of the bowl and set it aside. Add a bit of milk until you get to MEDIUM, which is what you want for your shells, stars, etc, and is the consistency of regular peanut butter (Jif, not the organic peanut butter )
\nTHIN is what you want to ice the cake and to do outlining, writing, teeny dots of yellow in the middle of flowers, Corelli lace, etc. It is the consistency of pudding. I only use corn syrup when I\u2019m doing writing and lace. I\u2019ve been known to use butter-only for thin icing and butter-shortening for the medium and thick consistencies.
\nYour icing will never look as smooth and perfect as it does in the Wilton books, so don\u2019t stress. To do the photo shoots, they use royal icing on Styrofoam cake dummies and then sand the icing to make it perfectly smooth.
\nHope this helps! This is a great recipe to get you going with cake decorating, and I\u2019ve had nothing but compliments making it. For flowers, I\u2019ve used it for drop flowers, roses, and mums (and made them ahead of time and frozen them and then put them on the cake.)
\nFor chocolate icing, add cocoa powder and adjust the consistency with cream.
\nTo make black icing, start with chocolate and then add the black color.
\nFor red, don\u2019t bother with any color but No-Taste Red.
\n\u201cRose Petal Pink\u201d is a lovely subtle pink color. The other pinks are Barbie bright. You can also tone down colors using Ivory \u2014 nice effects.
\nOh, you can also add meringue powder to stablize your icing. Use 1 Tbsp\/ recipe.
\nYou can make and color your icing in advance; just store it in the fridge and then pull it out the morning you\u2019re going to decorate. Keep in mind that your icing colors will get a big deeper over time.
\nCrisco will give you better results than generic shortening.
\nExperiment with extracts \u2014 I love, love, love 1\/8 tsp almond extract in my icing! Coconut is delish as well. When I said \u201cdon\u2019t bother with colorless vanilla\u201d I meant to use regular vanilla if that\u2019s what you prefer
\nHope this helps,
\nPeony Moss
\n++++++++
\nFor advanced, Rose Levy Berenbaum is a pro baker who has a recipe for Italian Meringue Buttercream that is supposed to be good for piping. I\u2019ve never tried it myself, but the one time I used a similar recipe just to frost a cake, the icing was so tasty I nearly put my head in the bowl to get every last molecule.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I posted my Seven Quick Takes at Jen’s, I followed one of the links back to this post at “So Much to Say, So Little Time”, in which the writer mentions that her Wilton instructor was recommending canned icing. I personally think that the Wilton instructor deserves the stocks or the ducking stool for… Continue reading Peony rants on cake icing recipes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes","category-seven-quick-takes-2","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}