Bright and multi-colored glaze that adorns the surface of the confectionery immediately causes the desire to bite off a piece, to feel some unusual taste. But often red or yellow decoration turns out to be an ordinary sweet coating, without a promising aroma.
If the icing is lemon-colored, then its taste must meet expectations so that sweetness does not cause disappointment with a deceptive appearance. Is it unfair? Fortunately, to achieve such results is not at all difficult.
Glaze for cupcakes - basic technological principles
Traditional types of gingerbread glaze are used now not only to cover gingerbread, but for other types of baking. Gingerbread glaze is prepared on the basis of sugar and egg white, with the addition of flavors and natural food colors. There are three ways to prepare it, which are described in detail below in the recipes.
But the confectioners, since the invention of the protein glaze, did not sit with folded arms. During this time, new culinary inventions appeared, and in many ways they were promoted by simple housewives, whose names remained unknown. There was a chocolate and milk icing, fruit and caramel. There are some nuances in the technology of its preparation, but the basis of all the recipes is a thick sugar syrup.
The principle is as follows: sugar is combined with a liquid. First, it dissolves in it, and then the liquid goes away, and the sugar crystals form strong “threads”, binding together. Bright colors - food pigments, tasty aromas are embedded in this structure. But frozen caramel can not be applied to the surface of a cake or gingerbread. She is fragile and tough. To give plasticity at the time of work with the glaze, it is based on proteins and fats: milk or egg.
Further, in the preparation of the glaze, only individual strokes are used that have no fundamental significance and do not affect its basic properties.
In fact, the color of the glaze is the easiest in the technology of its preparation. It can be achieved with the help of food dyes of natural origin. According to the color of the glaze is selected fruit component. This is the easiest technological step. Please note that the frozen glaze can have a matte and glossy surface - and this is much more interesting!
The texture of a sweet coating can have a different texture - crispy, oily, stretching. This criterion depends on the composition of the ingredients.
Finally, what needs to be done so that the icing spreads evenly over the surface and just as beautifully cures?
The answers to all these questions are in recipes for icing for muffins and other pastries.
1. Raw white cupcake icing - the first, basic way
Ingredients:
Egg protein 80 g (2 eggs of the first category)
Powdered sugar 240 g
Citric acid 1 g
Vanillin 2g
Salt, fine 1 g
Cooking:
Separate the proteins from the yolks: try to make it extremely carefully - if the smallest part of the yolk gets into the protein mass, it will not scramble.
Cool the whites. To do this, they can be placed in the refrigerator for half an hour right in the bowl for beating. Add some salt crystals before whisking.
Turn on the mixer at maximum power, beat until the volume increases 5-6 times.
Sift icing sugar through a sieve, combine with vanillin, add to whipped proteins in parts. It is advisable to sift the powder in the bowl of proteins through a sieve to speed up the process and avoid the formation of sugar clots.
Dissolve citric acid in a few drops of hot water and add the solution to the finished glaze. Stir it with a spatula. Citric acid gives shine protein glaze.
The glaze is applied to the pastry with a brush, in a thin layer, after which it is dried by placing it in an oven heated to 40-60 ° C. If it is necessary to attach decorative elements (colored sugar, figurines, sugar flowers) to the surface of the glaze, this should be done before drying.
2. Scalded protein glaze for muffins - the second method
Ingredients:
Sugar 250 g
Water (or fruit juice, clarified) 125 ml
Citric acid 2 g
Egg whites, cooled 3 pcs.
Salt 1 g
Flavoring - to taste
Cooking:
In a bowl with a double or thick bottom pour sugar, pour water or juice. Stir to dissolve sugar. Boil the syrup until the sample is “soft ball”. So that the sugar, as the liquid evaporates, does not crystallize on the walls of the dishes, the cooking should proceed under the lid. There is another problem in making sugar syrup. When the syrup is thick enough, it can burn at the bottom. To avoid this, put the dishes with syrup on a cast iron skillet, if there is no suitable container. The second way to solve this problem is boiling in a water bath.
Prepare a bowl of cold water to check if the syrup is ready. As soon as a drop dipped in cold water is rolled into a soft ball, remove the syrup from the stove, adding citric acid.
By the time syrup is ready, the egg whites must be whipped to a state of stable foam. Do this as described in the previous recipe. Continuing beating at maximum speed of the mixer, pour a hot syrup in a thin stream. When the mass becomes stable, add vanilla or other essence.
The glaze is ready and can be applied to the surface of the pastry. Scalded glaze dries longer, but it is more stable, has a dense and less brittle texture.
3. Quick recipe for icing sugar for muffins
This method of cooking is called simplified icing. It is usually used for coating gingerbread dough products, or for gluing elements of sugar decorations.
Ingredients:
Caster sugar 190 g
Water 40 ml
Protein 1 pc.
Food colorings
Flavoring
Cooking:
In warm boiled water dissolve flavoring and coloring. Add protein, mix the liquid until smooth. Pour the prepared solution into the powder, after sifting it. Heat the mixture to 40 ° C, stirring constantly.
The consistency of the glaze simplified resembles thick sour cream. Apply it with a brush.
To obtain a shiny surface, add a teaspoon of alcohol to the glaze. This may be vodka, rum, brandy.
4. Milky cupcake icing - a housewife recipe
In professional confectioners, it is considered that the icing for cakes, gingerbread and cookies should have a dense and fairly dry consistency. But the culinary imagination of simple housewives does not stop! Indeed, why not make a soft and creamy icing similar to cream for airy soft cupcakes? It would be desirable - therefore, do not deny yourself the pleasure. Ingredients:
Condensed milk (8.5%) 150 g
Powdered sugar 240 g
Vanillin 4g
Cognac 60 ml
Butter (82.5%) 75 g
Cooking:
In condensed milk, add the butter, sifted powder. As it should, pound the mixture and boil over low heat until the mass thickens: it should not drain from the spoon.
Add vanilla, brandy, mix. Remove the glaze from the stove, put it in a bowl with cold water, and beat with a whisk or spatula until cooled. The temperature of the glaze should drop to 40 ° C. Heat it again to 70 ° C, then cool to room temperature, whisk until fluffy, and apply to the product.
5. Fruit icing for muffins made from cherry syrup
In principle, the syrup can be not only cherry, but any other. It is prepared similarly to the method described in the second recipe, but there are nuances.
Ingredients:
Fruit syrup (from jam) 150 g
Sugar 180 g
Protein 3 pcs.
Cherry tincture (45 vol.) 50 ml
Cooking:
Heat the syrup, dissolve the sugar in it, let it boil. Boil down to one-third to reduce the volume. Pour little by little into whites, whipped to steady peaks. At the end of whipping add cherry tincture. Continue whipping until shine appears. You can, if necessary, pour a tablespoon of a solution of citric acid or juice.
Fruit syrup glaze will always have a lighter shade than syrup.
6. Chocolate cupcake icing
A chocolate bar is an ideal cake icing, but if melted to put on the surface of pastry, it is not a fact that the glazing will be perfectly flat and will harden to its original state. A simple solution to the question of applying chocolate glaze, in fact, can be a problem if you are not able to understand the varieties of chocolate.
For those who are seriously keen on confectionery, in specialized stores chocolate drops are sold - small “coins” or peas made from tempered chocolate. Tempering is a complicated process for home conditions, but it is enough to know: if you want to cook chocolate icing quickly, you will always have such chocolate in stock - it hardens after melting, and then gets its original shape again without visible changes. For those who are not looking for easy ways - the recipe for a good and versatile chocolate glaze.
Ingredients:
Natural cocoa powder (99.8%) 100 g
Sugar 180 g
Whole milk (or cream, not less than 15%) 220 ml
Sweet cream butter, top grade 30 g
Vanilla extract
Cognac or rum 50 ml
Cooking:
First, in order to shorten the process of making a glaze, milk or cream with sugar can be replaced with condensed cream in an amount equal to half of the specified weight and volume of ingredients. That is, if milk and sugar is reduced to a thick milk syrup, then its weight and volume will be halved due to evaporation of the liquid (water).
If there is no condensed cream on hand, boil milk and sugar. Milk must be natural and fat: it contains casein, which is very helpful in achieving a dense and dense consistency of milk syrup. In milk, processed in production - a completely different quality and other properties.
In hot syrup, sift cocoa. Mix thoroughly with a whisk until smooth.
A little cooking advice: it is very convenient to cook condensed milk and chocolate in a water bath. In this case, it is possible to precisely avoid burning, and during long cooking with minimal heating you will not have to constantly stand at the stove. Just select the appropriate dishes:
- a bowl with a high side - for chocolate icing;
- a capacious tank - for water, so that it does not have time to boil off within an hour and evenly warms the tank with the chocolate mass.
Do not forget to place a saucer with a spoon next to it in order to check if the chocolate is ready to be broken “into the drop”.
When the chocolate mass stops flowing on the saucer's surface, add butter, boil for another ten or fifteen minutes. Add vanilla, as you want, and lastly - rum or brandy. Remove the container with the glaze from the stove, put in a bowl with cold water and beat with a spatula or a whisk until shine appears.
Warm chocolate is applied to the cooled pastries. If you want to further decorate cupcakes, donuts, gingerbread or cookies, for example, coconut chips or sugar "noodles", then sprinkle the surface until the chocolate froze.
Cupcake Frosting - Tips and Tricks
Topical question: what to do with the egg yolks left over after the preparation of protein glaze? Possible uses:
• Add them to any dough: for homemade noodles, pancakes, dumplings, and so on. The missing 90% of the fluid contained in the protein, supplement with water. Egg protein of medium size (first category) contains 36 ml of water.
• Prepare mayonnaise - a product that is always useful.
• Use the yolks as a homemade cosmetic.
For the preparation of lush protein mass is very important that the proteins were chilled, fresh, and lower them for beating must be in a dry dish without the slightest trace of fat. It is desirable that the beating bowl was also cooled. To do this, place a metal bowl for a few minutes in the freezer.
To whip proteins faster, add a pinch of fine salt to the protein mass while whisking.
Sugar syrup will not crystallize when cooked, if you add a pinch of citric acid to it.
