There are several different types of icing used to cover
cakes, some of which go by more than one name! This can get a little confusing,
especially for beginners to baking and cake decorating. In this post I’m giving
a quick overview of the different icings I use and some of the other names I
know them by. At a later date (not too late I promise!) I’ll do a more in-depth post on
each type, which will include instructions on how to make and use them.
Hopefully I’ve managed to get all of the common names for
these icings, if I’ve missed any please let me know and I’ll update
accordingly. Some of the icings listed
below have more than one use which I’ll touch upon, but at the moment I’m only
concerned with icing as a cake covering. Anything that is primarily used for sugar
craft I’ll cover in a separate post. Right so let’s get started, oh and the pictures show examples of me using that icing. I've tried to use pictures that I haven't posted before where possible!
Water Icing aka Glacé Icing
A classic icing, and probably one that most people made as children! This
really is the simplest icing you can make, as it only needs water and icing
sugar! This icing is pretty adaptable as you can easily adjust the consistency to
suit any cake or biscuit. In addition to this because the basic recipe is
always white this icing is great fun to colour and it’s very easy to add
whatever flavour you want. Sometimes I use lemon juice instead of water and
spoon it over hot cakes for a quick lemon drizzle cake that is pre-iced.
Water icing is made by mixing small amounts of water into lots
of (sifted) icing sugar and mixing until you get the desired consistency. Just
be careful when adding flavours and colours as these will affect the consistency!
Buttercream
This is one of the simplest toppings you can make for a cake and it’s highly versatile.
Buttercream is made by simply creaming together butter and icing sugar and
adding some flavouring, the most common of which is vanilla. Once you’ve got a
nice smooth, thick and spreadable consistency it’s ready to use. Take care however, as using shortcuts like melting or warming the butter will only produce an oily
icing, so where possible allow your butter to get to room temperature before
starting!
Buttercream is great for filling sandwich cakes and topping all
manner of cakes, I often pipe or spread it onto cupcakes. This icing is highly
adaptable as by adding a couple of drops of food dye and changing the flavour you
can match it to any flavour of cake. Some of my favourite flavours include:
chocolate, cinnamon and rose.
Frosting
Now I expect that many people include buttercream under the umbrella term of
frosting, but when I mention frosting I’m usually referring to cream cheese
frosting. Which happens to be my favourite type of icing, it’s so tasty. I include marshmallow and meringue frosting here too, but those are slightly different so I won't discuss them here.
Commonly found on carrot cakes and red velvet cakes, this
icing is made in pretty much the same way as buttercream only with the addition
of cream cheese.
Sugarpaste aka Fondant Icing
When you buy a premade birthday or Christmas cake this sugarpaste is normally
what has been used to ice it. This type of icing is a popular choice when
decorating cakes, and is very simple to use. To be honest I’m not entirely sure
how sugarpaste is made but since it is widely available in shops it really isn’t
necessary to make your own. Sugarpaste can be used to cover cakes by simply
rolling it out as you would pastry and draping it over the cake, however it
also has uses in sugarcraft as it is very easy to use for model making.
Sugarpaste is sold in pretty much any colour you can think
of, and white sugarpaste can be coloured using food colours (or by kneading
blobs of coloured sugarpaste into it). It is naturally extremely sweet however
it is possible to buy flavoured sugarpaste (for example lemon and chocolate).
This is usually only available in specialist cake decorating shops though. Shop
brought sugarpaste can be kept for over a year if stored in an airtight
container in a cool dry place.
Royal Icing
Another icing that has two uses, royal icing can be piped and used as
decorations or used to cover cakes. It
dries hard and is very brittle once dry which means you should be prepared for breakages
(and lots of them) if using this to make decorations!
This icing is quite simple to make, but does behave
differently to other types of icing. Royal icing is made by beating together
egg whites and icing sugar to create a thick smooth icing. Some recipes call
for lemon juice but I never add it. To thicken royal icing you must never add
extra icing sugar as this will ruin the proportions in the recipe, to thicken
simply beat the icing for longer. If you require a runnier icing add a tiny bit
of water (literally drops). When made this way the icing is perfect for use
when piping decorations, if you want to cover a cake with it add some glycerine. This addition means that while the icing is
still hard when dry it won’t be as brittle, so it won’t crack so much when you
actually cut the cake!
When used to cover a cake royal icing is either used to
create a perfectly smooth surface (common on wedding cakes) or a rougher
textured surface that makes a great snow scene on Christmas cakes.
As royal icing sets hard it needs to be kept in an airtight
container when not in use, but if left alone in a cool, dry place and perfectly
sealed it can be kept for months.
So there you have it a basic overview of all the different
types of cake covering, I haven’t dealt with marzipan here as that is usually
hidden under royal icing or sugarpaste. I hope this post is helpful in some
way. As I said as the start, at a later date I’ll discuss each of these in more
detail and discuss the icing used in sugarcraft.
