Caramel Frosting

Caramel frosting (and caramel cake!)...a southern treat. This recipe is a little thicker-but still easily spreadable--than many traditional southern caramel frostings which are poured and spread over cakes when still warm that get harder as they cool.

Ingredients

1 C whipping cream

2 T light corn syrup

½ t salt

3 C sugar, divided

¾ butter

1 T vanilla (or substitute bourbon)

Directions

Combine cream, corn syrup, salt and 2¹/₃  C sugar in medium saucepan; cook, stirring often, until sugar is dissolved and mixture boils. Reduce heat, cover and keep warm.

Place remaining ²/₃ C sugar in a skillet over medium heat. Do not stir until sugar melts and is light golden color; then stir gently until sugar dissolves, begins to simmer and is dark amber.

Quickly pour caramelized sugar into cream mixture. Stir until evenly combined.

Cook over medium heat stirring continually until mixture reaches 238°F. Remove from heat.

Pour into stand mixer bowl; add butter and vanilla, stirring until smooth. Stir occasionally while allowing mixture to cool to 110°F -- may take about an hour.

Beat using paddle attachment until lightened and thickened and cooled to 90°F.

Let stand, cooling to 75°F.

Frost cake (or cupcakes), or store in airtight container at room temperature; use within 2-3 days. If needed, stir in extra cream--a tsp at a time--until frosting is spreadale consistency.

My first try at this...frosting was a tiny bit gritty with crystalized sugar, so I may need to stir/beat more as it's cooling. I also added a bit of butter after it was cooled, mostly just to increase the amount to make sure I had enough to frost all the cupcakes I had. Worked great, and it was creamy, fluffy and, of course, buttery. Delicious garnished with flaky salt!

Mirror Glaze ...on naturally red (?) Red Velvet Cake

 Warning: This is much longer than my typical recipe post!! Definitely more 'bloggy' about the process...for my own record mostly. 

I wanted to try out a mirror glaze technique, but figured  I might as well try a new cake recipe while I was at it. Not that I really need more and more cake recipes (!) but Cooking Light has a red velvet recipe that is "naturally red" by using beets. I already have a red velvet cake recipe; like most, it uses red food coloring. I also have a chocolate beet cake recipe that I love. It's not red; however, it does call for cocoa powder (and I often use dark cocoa powder) and dark chocolate and brown sugar...all of which contribute to masking the color of the beets (and flavor...the beets just make the cake wonderfully moist!).

Cooking Light's recipe for "naturally red" velvet cake IS natural (no red food coloring), but...not very red. I used a light (well, 'normal') cocoa powder, not dark, to let the color come through. The beets, again, result in a wonderfully moist cake. But if the desire is for a red velvet cake, I don't think I'd use this one. Still, it was a fine cake for testing out mirror glazing.

I made a few small cakes for practicing on rather than one larger cake.

I experimented with a miror glaze recipe that uses sweetened condensed milk; others use corn syrup which I am not opposed to (I know some people think it's evil and to be avoided). Might be worth experimenting to see how it impacts opacity...

The glaze, either way, is quite runny. That does make it easier for smooth, complete 'sheets' of glaze dripping down the sides, but it was a bit thin in many spots and, as you can see in the photo, a LOT drips right off the cakes. If you work reasonably quickly, you wouldn't have to be super fast, you could re-use the 'drippings', though that might work better with a single, solid color.

And it's really important with a thin glaze to make sure your 'crumb coat' of base frosting is very smooth, and relatively thick since you can see through the thin glaze in quite a few spots.

I was working with two colors to see how easy (or challenging) it would be to marble them. Not difficult at all as long as you're not trying to be too exact. Throw on some sprinkles and edible glitter dust, pipe colored frosting (not more runny glaze!) around the bottom -- or use more sprinkles, chopped nuts, etc. -- to hide the bottom drip edge and it looks pretty good!

Next time, I think I'll thicken it a little with a higher ratio of (white) chocolate - see below. But not too much as it hinders marbling and a smooth-surfaced, shiny glaze. This recipe makes enough to glaze a two-layer 8" cake (or 9") ...as long as you don't drip TOO much down coating the sides.

Ingredients

1 ¼-ounce pkg unflavored gelatin powder

¼ C + 3 T water

¾ C sugar

1/3 C sweetened condensed milk

 6 oz white 'chocolate' chips

gel food coloring(s)

optional: edible glitter and sprinkles for decorating

Directions

Mis en place* all of your ingredients, including cakes pre-frosted with a base of icing spread very smoothly and refrigerated overnigh or frozen for at least 2 hours; this helps the gelatin in the mirror glaze to set.

* Mis en place: Gather ALL of the utensils and equipment you will need and pre-measure all of your ingredients so you have everything you need, ready to move from one step to the next without things just sitting (cooling, setting or hardening when they shouldn't be!) while you're looking for the next needed tool or ingredient.

In a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 2 tablespoons of the water; stir, let sit for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine remaining water, sweetened condensed milk and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve all sugar. Remove from heat; stir in gelatin until completely dissolved.

Pour hot mixture over chocolate pieces in a heat proof (glass or metal) bowl; let sit 3-5 minutes until chocolate pieces are very soft. Stir until totally melted and well combined. If needed, strain through fine mesh sieve. (Some 'white chocolate' baking morsels have additives that help them retain their chip form during baking -- great for cookies, not so great for mirror glaze.)

If two colors are desired for marbling, divide mixture and color each as desired.

Pour the colored glaze(s) over the cake, starting at the edges, drizzling to evenly coat the sides, then swirling over the top surface. (If you want to try combining the colors in one bowl to pour out a marbled effect, check out Step Nine in these instructions from Food Network.)

I had a 6" cake left after my blue-purple glaze -- reserved because I wanted to try a chocolate (semi-sweet) mirror glaze...for flavor as well as to see how it looked.

The darker chocolate loses its shine more quickly, but even the white chocolate had a decidedly more matte finish after 24 hours. The marbling still gave it a nice look, just not shiny.

Royal Icing ...and... Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

These recipes need not be made in combination. I certainly didn't intend them to be perceived that way. I'm only posting them like this because (idiot that I was)...I completely forgot to snap a picture of the cookies before covering them with the icing!

The shortbread cookies are a pretty basic shortbread recipe...with finely chopped rosemary. I'd love to try other herbs that may make the crossover between sweet and savory, but this is where I started -- likely because my rosemary plant is the only one really flourising so far this spring.

The royal icing is also a recipe that's a combination of 3 different royal icing recipes I had - one I found in a baking & pastry textbook, one from this past year's Fall Conference for FCS educators, and one from Allrecipes.com. Trying to take the best of each and arrive at a balanced final product that tasted okay and was a good, workable consistency.

These cookies were my first attempts with royal icing -- usually I'm a buttercream girl! Piled on a plate (where I can hide my less than stellar first attempts on the bottom layer!) they look decent enough if you don't look too closely. At least they were a sweet, bright spot for Easter. (I realized I have no egg shaped cooking cutter!)

Royal Icing Ingredients
1 lb powdered sugar
2 T meringue powder
½ t cream of tartar
5 T water; additional water for 'flooding' consistency
1 T vanilla (or lemon juice)
gel food coloring (s)

Royal Icing Directions
Blend powdered sugar, meringue powder, and cream of tartar. (I throw in a dash of salt as well.) Mix vanilla with 4 T water; blend into powdered sugar mixture. For a good outlining consistency, the icing should run in thick ribbons from the mixing spoon into the bowl, disappearing into the surface in abouat 10 seconds. Add the remaining tablespoon of water if needed.

Divide the icing into smaller bowls before mixing with food coloring(s) for multiple colors. If you only have liquid food colors, just remember that they will thin your icing - especially if you go for brighter or darker colors and not pastels, so adjust the water content accordingly. Outline cookies or areas to be filled with each color using a piping bag with a small round tip (or...use a disposable plastic sandwich bag and snip a tiny corner off). Save some icings at piping/outlining consistency to add details over flooding (once set), if desired. Then...

Add additional water (a LITTLE at a time) to achieve flooding consistency. Fill outlined areas with thinned icing, spreading gently to fill out to edges as needed.

Rosemary Shortbread Cookie Ingredients
1 C butter, diced
½ C powdered sugar (granulated sugar works fine too)
1 T finely chopped rosemary
2 C flour
½ t salt
1 tsp vanilla

Shortbread Cookie Directions
Preheat oven to 300 F°.

Cream butter with sugar and rosemary; add salt and vanilla, blending until well incorporated. Add flower, mixing on low speed until dough just comes together.

Roll or press to  inch thick; slice into squares or cut with cookie cutters. Gently gather scraps, re-roll and cut...

Bake until bottoms are just beginning to brown (about 30 minutes).

Lemon Buttercream

Ingredients
1 C butter, softened
2 tsp lemon zest
2-3 C powdered sugar
1½ T heavy cream
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
Whip butter and lemon zest until light, fluffy and very pale, almost white. Blend in 1 cup powdered sugar. Mix in heavy cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Add 1 to 2 cups more powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

Vanilla Buttercream

makes about 4 cups

Ingredients
2 C butter, room temperature
4 C confectioners' sugar, sifted
½ C whole milk
2 T vanilla extract

Directions
Beat butter on high speed until very pale and very fluffy (at least 5 minutes), scraping down sides of bowl 2 or 3 times during process.

With mixer on low, slowly add sugar. Scrape bowl again. Slowly add in milk and vanilla; mix until combined. Scrape bowl again.

Beat on high speed until buttercream is extremely fluffy, 8 to 10 minutes. It should look almost like whipped cream.

Right now...only have a picture of it in the bowl. I'll try to add one with it on a cake soon.

Peach (& Brown Sugar) Cake

I found some peach puree in my freezer; I used my Chocolate Beet Cake recipe as a guide...  This worked well: Cake is light, fluffy, and tender. Very moist. Peach flavor is very mild; might be more evident using white sugar. Then again...maybe not; you really don't taste any beet in the chocolate cake. Still, it's something to try next time. :)


Ingredients
1 C butter, softened
1½ C brown sugar
3 eggs
2 C peach purée
1 tsp vanilla
2¼ C flour
2 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 375˚.

Stir or sift together flour, soda and salt; set aside. Cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and beat until well combined. Stir in peach purée and vanilla. Gradually add dry ingredients. Scoop batter into baking pans -- coated with non-stick cooking spray -- or cupcake tins lined with baking papers.

Mini-cupcakes baked in 16-18 minutes, full size cupcakes in 18-20. Round or square cake pans would probably require 25-30 minutes. Test them with a toothpick.


For the icing, I used my Vanilla Buttercream Icing recipe, but... 
Ginger and peach are such a great combo, and I had some fresh ginger root that was starting to dry a bit. Before bringing the sugar and water to 248˚, I sliced the ginger into the sugar-water mixture and brought it just to a boil; then let it sit for 1/2 an hour to steep the ginger and flavor the sugar-water. Scoop or strain out the ginger, and finish the recipe without further changes. Ground ginger could be added along with the butter as an alternative.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
½ C butter
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
5 C confectioner's sugar
¼ C whole milk
½ tsp vanilla
pinch salt

Directions:
Beat butter and cream cheese on high speed until well combined, pale and creamy. Reduce speed to medium; add confectioner's sugar 1 cup at a time. Add milk, vanilla and salt; beat until fluffy (about 3 minutes).

Piped Chocolate Garnishes

So simple...dark, milk, white, even chocolate chips will do! You can use a pastry bag, but I simply melted chocolate in a zip lock bag in the microwave (slowly, 10-15 seconds at a time...massage and squeeze the bag each time until chocolate is just melted). Use sturdy bag; cheap/flimsy ones can burst the seams. Snip off a tiny corner of the bag. Pipe desired shapes onto wax paper -- on a plate, cookie sheet, etc. Refrigerate until very firm. Carefully peel off wax paper and gently transfer to...whatever!

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:
3 C powdered sugar 
¼ C cocoa powder 
¼ tsp salt
8 oz cream cheese, softened 
¾ C butter
9 oz bittersweet chocolate 
¾ C sour cream 

Directions:
Melt chocolate; set aside to cool slightly. Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Combine sugar, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl, then slowly add to cream cheese mixture with mixer on medium-low speed. Slowly pour in chocolate until fully incorporated. Add sour cream and beat until smooth and creamy.

This makes a fairly thick frosting...not really ideal for piping onto cupcakes, but that's what I had today. It would probably be better slathered onto a layer cake!

Citrus Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
²/₃ C butter, softened
2 tsp lemon juice
4 C powdered sugar
optional: food coloring

Directions: Cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth. Gradually beat in lemon juice (and food coloring, if desired) and powdered sugar.


For a delicious non-citrus cream cheese icing, simply substitute vanilla instead of the lemon juice.

Italian Meringue Vanilla Frosting

Ingredients:
1½ C sugar
½ C water
½ C egg whites (4 or 5)
1½ C butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
optional: food coloring

Directions:
Mix sugar and water in small sauce pan; cook over high heat until syrup reaches 248°. While syrup is heating, beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Pour hot syrup in a thin, steady stream into whipped egg whites* with beaters running; continue to beat until mixture is  no longer hot. Cool to room temperature.

Beat in softened butter a little at a time, beating until butter is incorporated and mixture is smooth after each addition. Add vanilla (or another desired flavor extract) and food coloring, if desired.


* Pouring the HOT syrup into the egg whites cooks them, eliminating the danger of salmonella contamination associated with raw eggs.

Buttercream frosting can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week. Bring to room temperature and re-beat to restore smooth texture.