28
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
If you're just practicing piping, you can just pipe onto parchment paper (or a clean counter) and then scrape it off with a spatula and save the frosting. That way you can actually practice with the ...
- 11.4k
24
votes
Accepted
Does it make sense for a cake icing recipe to call for vinegar but not baking soda?
It's fine as written.
Combining vinegar with baking soda (or any acid with any base) is usually done in baking to produce gas, which can lighten the finished product. This is an icing, which is ...
- 14.8k
10
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
Option 1: Canned frosting is a lot cheaper than making your own. It doesn't taste as good, but that doesn't really matter if you just use it to practice.
Option 2: Make a batch of very simple ...
- 10.6k
9
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
No personal experience but:
Cake making site recommends making your buttercream with crisco instead of butter. It's cheaper but it's not going to taste good at all. It can also be reused and stored ...
- 16.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Egg sizes of yesteryear and today
There is no absolute conversion as egg sizes were not standardized back then. For the USA, not England, the food timeline http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodeggs.html under the section "Egg sizes the ...
- 3,739
6
votes
How to do icing swirl effect (a bit like marbling)?
I can't be sure, but it looks like there are two different things going on here.
For the ice cream cake, notice that there is no white chocolate in the bottom swirl (the white there is a reflection of ...
- 1,907
5
votes
How can you achieve the glazed top in a mille-feuille?
Mille feuille (Napoleon), eclairs and petit fours, to name but a few, are definitely iced with fondant pastry - also known as poured fondant. Not a royal icing.
There are 3 types of fondant:
Pastry ...
- 51
5
votes
Which alternative fats, not butter or avocado, are good to make chocolate frosting
Pretty much any solid fat will work here. Since you're replacing something that's not just fat, you might prefer to whip the fat to lighten it up a bit, no matter which you choose.
Since your recipe ...
- 57.9k
5
votes
Can I substitute condensed milk for evaporated milk in icing?
Yes you can.
If you have unsweetened condensed milk, that is another name for evaporated milk and they are interchangeable.
If you have sweetened condensed milk, you can use one 14 oz can to ...
- 5,290
4
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
I practiced originally with pure shortening back when I was learning how to pipe. Just scrape it back into the shortening container, as long as you use a spotless surface. Its also excellent for ...
- 41
4
votes
Piping whipped cream icing vs buttercream
You could try adding a piping gel, such as the one found here, which contains no eggs or dairy.
Alternatively, the colder you keep the whipped cream icing, the better it will hold its shape. You ...
- 2,798
4
votes
Royal icing safety concern
If you can get a powdered substitute, or even pasteurized egg whites, and it will make you feel better, go for it. I understand that using meringue powder is actually a bit easier to work with, so if ...
- 5,074
4
votes
Accepted
Can you make butter-cream icing with margerine?
Yes, you most definitely can, and I have done so many times, since I often can't use dairy in cakes. Of course the flavor will be different, since margarine doesn't taste quite like butter. But the ...
- 2,117
3
votes
Piping whipped cream icing vs buttercream
The main pitfall to whipped cream is that it has to be kept cold. Your hands will heat up the cream in the bag, causing it to lose volume and pipe sloppily.
Stabilizing the whipped cream will help. ...
- 4,416
3
votes
Does it make sense for a cake icing recipe to call for vinegar but not baking soda?
Vinegar also changes the consistency of a substrate. For example, it makes toffee malleable, or can be used in a pastry to make it stretchy. It potentially affects the texture of the icing too.
- 31
3
votes
What causing royal icing to get stringy?
As Escoce mentioned, it's partially technique.
After you finish your dot, you want to move the tip in a quick circle while keeping the tip against the dot, then lift off. This will help to minimize ...
- 77.2k
3
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
You could use vegetable shortening or stick margarine as a substitute for the butter. Either would be much more economical for practice purposes.
- 18.3k
3
votes
To make a cream cheese icing, can I use cottage cheese?
It is true that you can use the cottage cheese, you could even use ricotta cheese which Italians have a Ricotta Cheese Pie and Sambucca Liqueur is used as a flavoring. It is delicious. Using cottage ...
- 1,182
3
votes
Accepted
Butter cream icing substitutions for covering the cake with fondant
Butter cream consists mostly of almost water-free fat (butter or shortening) and sugar. Whipped cream has about 30% fat, the remaining part is solids and mostly water.
Everything that has ...
- 4,618
3
votes
Rice paper cake toppers
I saw no degradation in image quality (custom printed ones) in a few days. If the icing is hard then you moisten it just enough for the rice paper to stick before letting it dry again you should be ...
- 41.5k
3
votes
Substitute regular sugar for confectioners sugar in icing
It depends on the type of recipe you want to use, but generally the answer is yes. Powdered/confectioner's sugar recipes for glaze or icing often just use a very small amount of liquid. With ...
- 31.9k
3
votes
Accepted
What actually happens if you pour a glaze over a loaf cake before it has cooled?
The icing will seem like it's melting and soak though the pound cake. The effect will be similar to soaking the cake with simple syrup. A pound cake is fairly 'solid' so the consistency shouldn't be ...
- 10.6k
3
votes
Accepted
Icing a cake with meringue: can it be done in advance?
This is a pretty tricky question to answer without knowing what the climate is like in your area.
Meringue is hygroscopic (absorbs water easily) due to the high concentration of sugars in the ...
- 12.1k
2
votes
Making cake icing look professionally smooth
Top tier professional bakers do a few things, some mentioned here but some not. Here is the run down:
Most top tier bakers are using Italian buttercream. It's more stable than American buttercream ...
- 21
2
votes
How can I attach printed rice paper decorations to cakes / cookies?
A cake teacher taught me this method and it works beautifully.
Trace your image onto the rice paper (bumpy side up) with edible ink.
Cut the image out with about an 1/4 inch border left on. Place ...
- 21
2
votes
How can I attach printed rice paper decorations to cakes / cookies?
I see you got no response about the fondant discs - use ready to roll fondant/ sugarpaste (different names depending where you live)and roll it out to about 3mm thick. Using a round cutter, cut out ...
- 21
2
votes
How do I practice piping icing without wasting icing and money?
I used to do cake decorating, just for friends, even wedding cakes with intricate patterns and lacework. Other than the wedding cakes (which were done with royal icing), I always made the Wilton "...
- 31
2
votes
Accepted
whipped cream icing beforehand vs right before serving
Whipped cream can be made with unflavored gelatin, so that it will hold its shape for hours; that is how bakeries do it. I did not find it difficult to do the first time I tried it, and was really ...
- 36
2
votes
To make a cream cheese icing, can I use cottage cheese?
I actually used cottage cheese for a pound cake frosting, because I had no cream cheese. I took the cake to church, and everyone loved it. Do not use the same amount of cottage cheese ( use 1 1/2 cups ...
- 21
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