Friday, January 22, 2010
Perfect Icing Method
I usually use whipped cream for the filling. I have tried several times, but I am not able to get the perfect flat layer of whipped cream between the layers of my cake. I manage to cheat to a certain extent:-)) but would love to see see this perfection when I slice the cake. Any tips??
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7 comments:
Hi Suma..you have got a great blog and I am glad I hopped on here:).
Being a beginner baker myself,I can give you a few tips.Are you using Amul cream?If so,keep the tetra pack refrigerated overnight and after opening it,drain off any excess water formed on the top of the cream and then start beating.Chilling the bowl[in which you plan to beat the cream]and the beater blades helps too.
If you want to take the easy way out,you get whipped cream in powder form which gives a great result every time.
Hope it helps..Happy Baking!!
Hi Suma
I have a sure-shot method for this one: Take ice cubes in a large bowl. Take the fresh cream-icing sugar mixture in a smaller bowl that can sit on the ice cubes (The smaller bowl and the ice cubes should come in contact with each other). Now beat in steady, circular motions, using a hand mixer/blender for 3-5 minutes and voila, you'll have smooth, thick fresh cream icing for your cake!
While smearing onto the cake, use a flat, wide knife. You could dip the knife in water in between, while spreading the cream so it doesn't get stuck to the knife. Take care not to overdo the water dipping bit though.
Phew, that was a long comment...longer than your post itself I reckon! :)
This is what Mom and me learnt at a baking class. Hope it helps. Let me know!
Cheers
Madhuri
This is defn. a tough task. When I cover middle layers of cake with icing I normally use a silicone spatula. Here is how I do it:
- Place the cake on a large plate (you can use the one on which you would have inverted it from the pan itself.
- Now, on your work area, place a smaller plate with wedges (like our regular snack/meal steel plates in which we eat, say rice and gravies...where you can drag the rice to the edge and lift it up in one motion with the curry towards the end of your meal... LOL what an explanation, but I think you got the idea)...So place that in an inverted position. It has to be a few inches smaller than the plate that you placed your cake on.
- Slowly mount your cake (and the first plate/board) onto this. You should be able to rotate the cake on the inverted plate
- Now drop a large dollop of whipped cream in the center of the cake
- Spread out roughly into a small circle using the spatula
- Now, hold the spatula just above the cream (just about the thickenss of the cream you want) and apply light pressure and spread the cream AND simultaneously rotate the cake. Make sure you hand is very stable. Placing the whole cake mount on a higher surface helps a bit as you can bend and view the cream spreading as you rotate it
- Go on rotating and spreading until the whole cake is covered
- You can do so even for the sides by applying a large dollop of cream on one side and holding the spatula against it in a tangential manner and rotating the cake. This will push and spread the cream evenly along the sides of the cake
We normally place the second layer as soon as we ice the lower layer.. but here's a li'l tip esp. when you use cream. Once you are done icing the bottom layer, place it in the fridge for about 45 min. This will slightly harden the cream. Now again remount the cake and use a clean spatula to slowly flatten the icing/cream. Cooling the iced layer in the fridge makes it a lot more easy to handle. This ensures a smooth layer of icing. Now place the next layer on top.
In fact you can place you cake it self in the fridge for about 30 minutes or so before you begin icing it so that you dont have to deal with the crumbs that fall off as you begin icing the layers.
I hope this helps. Do let me know!!
WOW! That was long... On a separate not entirely this is kinda how they do it on cake competition shows out here...esp. when the cake has to be covered with fondant (which needs a super flat iced cake as its base...any 'hills' or 'creaks' show up under fondant)
Saw your post and thought I would respond, I am currently taking my third wilton course for decoration purposes, I have been baking for a very long time! Anyhow, with a piping bag cut a large hole and pipe a thick circle about a 1/2 in inside the cake then fill the middle, when you place your next layer on top it will sit nicely on top, do not push down... then frost the entire cake, also it keeps frosting from bulging between your layers after a short while... The other thing is in your whipped cream frosting use powdered sugar, it kind of stabilizes the whipped cream allowing it to hold up better, beat to soft peaks and then add vanilla and piping gel, then beat to stiff peaks. The piping gel further stabilizes the whipped cream, standard recipe I use is 2 C of heavy whipping cream, 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and 3 Tablespoons of piping gel. : ))
Can we use Amul Fresh cream ??? does it give light whipped cream... the one which v find in Black forest cakes? ... someone mentioned about the whipped cream powder ??? can u plz tell me the brand?
hi this is geetika
accidently dropped on this site cause just found my new interest in baking.
want to know the ratio of fresh cream and icing sugar for icing the cake
thanks
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