Icing is a wonderful topping for baked goods. It’s perfect for coating donuts, cookies and cakes with fruit. It will also glue a gingerbread house together without a problem.
We mainly associate frosting with decorating holiday cookies and gingerbread houses. The second association is a frosted donut eagerly devoured on Fat Thursday. Icing is also the crowning of cupcakes and cakes with fruit. How to prepare such a topping yourself?
Icing dissolved sugar. A sweet and very caloric topping that many can’t resist. Its making is child’s play. It does not require heating and does not take much time. To prepare the basic version of the frosting you just need:
Sift powdered sugar through a sieve into a bowl. Then add to sugar a few drops of lemon juice (freshly squeezed) and a little water. Using a spoon, rub the sugar against the sides of the bowl. Stir and add water until you get a smooth, glossy mass. The density of the frosting depends on your preference. A thicker mixture is good for sticking cookies together and making gingerbread houses. Icing with a thinner consistency is ideal for frosting cakes.
When making icing, water may be replaced by any liquid. We will then get a flavored icing. Citrus is ideal for this. Freshly squeezed juice from a grapefruit, lime, orange or pomegranate will influence the taste and color of your homemade icing. Sour or slightly bitter taste, combined with a large amount of sugar, will create a balanced composition. The juice will also give color. Thanks to this, we can get an icing with orange, red or green coloration, without using food coloring.
We can prepare juice from any fruit. If you have a juicer, just run your favorite fruit through it to get some of the liquid needed to make the frosting. Berries, cherries, cherries and even apples will be suitable. It’s all a matter of our creativity and taste preferences.
In a very simple way we can also prepare chocolate icing ourselves. To make it we need everything that is contained in the basic recipe, plus additional cocoa or very finely grated chocolate. The cocoa should be sifted through a sieve together with the sugar. If you choose the version with grated chocolate, add it to the sugar and then pour the liquid over everything. Stir until the sugar and chocolate dissolve and combine into a smooth mass.
To prepare coffee icing we need brewed, strong coffee or instant coffee dissolved in cool water. This combination will appeal to lovers of bitter flavors and not too sweet desserts. Coffee icing will be a fantastic topping for coffee cake or murzynka. We can also use it to cover spicy cakes, which will go perfectly with a morning cup of coffee.
A slightly different type of icing than the one described above is royal icing. To use it, you will need the whites of chicken eggs. To prepare royal icing you need the whites of 1 egg, 150 g icing sugar and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Place sifted powdered sugar and the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer or whisk by hand. The icing is ready when the mass is glossy, shiny and uniform. It is a good idea to scald the eggs with hot water before use.
On top of the frosting you can put some extras, such as dried or candied fruits, sugar sprinkles, nuts or coconut.
Main photo: Nikolett Emmert/Pexels
