What is your favourite birthday cake? For many people, it’s a classic yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting. But what makes this type of cake so special? Is it the fluffy layers or the rich chocolate flavour? The answer is both and neither. The real secret to a great birthday cake is icing. You see, when you ice a cake, it not only looks pretty, but it also helps keep the cake moist and fresh. So, before you start baking your next birthday cake, make sure you have plenty of icing on hand.
What exactly is icing?
Icing is like a thin, runny sugary liquid that hardens on cooling. Most commonly iced items include donuts and cinnamon rolls but it can also be used for other things such as pound cakes, lemon cake -and of course, birthday cakes.
Icing is a delicious way to add some flavour and decoration on top of favourite desserts. The basic ingredient for this sugar-based mixture comes from either water, milk or cream mixed with vanilla extract if desired before being poured over warm baked goods such as cakes.
Icing versus frosting
Icing and frosting are often interchanged and unless you are a baker, you can’t easily tell the difference between the two. However, frosting does more than just decorate the cake; it helps hold the structure of the cake to keep it in shape. Icing on the other hand can be used as filling (for additional flavour), or as a decorative topping on cakes and other desserts.
Uses of icing
Icing is a great way to create custom shapes for your cakes, such as flowers and leaves. You can use it with delicious edible dyes so that they will have the perfect hue! Sprinkles on top make everything taste even better too.
Icing is often used to make decorations for cakes and other desserts. For example, flowers can be formed by sticking arms through the petals of different-coloured icing shapes that have been painted with edible dyes before being stuck together at their stems with royal icing.
Different varieties of icing
The basic icing contains powdered sugar and water. This can be laced with extracts or flavours such as lemon for extra kick.
The most common ways to make icings are by either beating fat into powdered sugar or melting it with butter and glucose. Other ingredients that can be added include glycerine (which is used for fondant), alcohols like ethanol, which makes the finished product harder than if no chemical had been employed at all; they also create different flavours depending upon what other substances are added on the icing.
More than just for decoration
Icing does a lot more to a cake than mere decoration. While frosting is used to hold the cake structure and give it a distinct look, it is the icing that adds more accessories to make the cake look unique.
At the same time, icing gives the cake the complementing flavour it needs to serve the palate. Without icing, even the perfectly baked cake would taste bland. There may be toppings added, but it is the icing that links the cake and its add-ons together for a harmonious finish.
