Making icing can be a piece of cake if you know what you're doing. And believe it or not,
well made icing can be pretty great. Here are some mistakes
you might be making with homemade icing that you can totally avoid.
Most home bakers know that using butter that's too cold is a no-no when making icing, but butter
that's too warm — a.k.a. too soft — should also be avoided. Pastry chef Jessica Lewis tells Mashed:
"If your butter is too soft, you will likely have a much
less fluffy buttercream icing and [it] will likely be too soft to work with."
The sugar will soften up the butter a bit, too. One fix for this is letting
the butter sit at room temp for no longer than two hours before baking,
based on the temperature of your kitchen. Lewis explains:
"The warmer your kitchen, the less time your butter should sit out."
Here's another tip from MyRecipes.com. Once your
butter is soft enough where you can mark it with a thumbprint, you're in good shape.
You want your icing to be sweet, but not too sweet. Jessica Lewis says:
"Make sure you're tasting your icing while it's being made,
and control the amount of sugar going in."
If you add too much sugar, it'll leave an unpleasant aftertaste. Too little sugar,
and you'll get a buttery aftertaste. Try balancing the flavors as you mix.
If you taste the buttercream and it's too sweet, add a pinch of salt. Salt helps balance the sugar.
According to Cake Decorist, a good time saver is to use salted butter instead of
regular butter in your recipe. Then, that salty flavor will already be in there.
Other great ingredients that can help even out the sweetness include sour cream, crème fraîche,
or mascarpone cheese. They'll add an extra layer of flavor to the icing, too.
To many people, sugar is sugar. But that's not entirely true,
and different types of sugar will yield different results when baking or making icing.
Granulated sugar is pretty common in icing,
but a good rule of thumb is that the coarser the sugar you use, the more evenly your icing
sugar will blend. That's why granulated sugar — a pretty coarse sugar — is a common choice.
However, according to pastry chef Jessica Lewis, powdered sugar is also a great choice for icing.
In fact, it's less likely to lead to a grainy texture than the popular granulated option.
Another option is to grind your coarse sugar in a blender until it looks powdery,
according to wikiHow. Then, whisk the sugar and proceed with your recipe.
No matter what kind of sugar you use,
be sure to sift it first. This will give you fluffy sugar without any clumps.
If your butter is stored in the fridge,
plan ahead when making icing. Pastry chef Jessica Lewis tells Mashed:
"I recommend leaving the butter out for no more than two hours, depending on your kitchen's temp."
If the butter is too cold, you'll end up with a lumpy buttercream — not the smooth texture
you're looking for. When that happens, chef Ebony Austin of Nouveau Bar & Grill recommends
adding confectioner's sugar to thin out the frosting and get it smooth.
But butter isn't the only ingredient where temperature can cause issues.
Penny Stankiewicz of the Institute of Culinary Education tells Mashed:
"The number one problem people have with making icing at home is getting it to the right
temperature. The trick here is that if you're planning to use the icing right after making it,
make sure to use softened butter and have all the ingredients be at room temperature."
As with any type of cooking or baking,
the results you get are directly related to the quality of the ingredients you use.
Jocelyn Drexinger, owner of MINT + MALLOW kitchen tells Mashed:
"The most common mistake I see home bakers make with icing is not using high quality butter."
Creaming butter correctly is key to making a smooth frosting. Using a free range,
slow-churned butter will give you the creamiest, and of course,
tastiest frosting you could ever want. Drexinger explains:
"With so few ingredients in a simple recipe like homemade icing, the flavor of every ingredient,
be it good or bad, will really come through. [A high quality butter's] superior structure
that comes from cream produced by healthy, grass-fed cows, will also yield a smoother
texture and make it that much easier for any home baker to achieve a delicious frosting."
More often than not, icing recipes will call for milk or water. Get this ratio wrong,
and you might wind up with hard, crumbly icing or an icing that's too runny. Making
icing is heavily reliant on using the right measurements of ingredients. That's
why adding too little milk or water is just as bad as adding too much.
Pastry chef Jessica Lewis tells Mashed:
"Buttercream needs a bit of milk or water to smooth out the mixture and combine everything.
If you use too much, you'll have icing soup, if you don't add enough,
it'll be too dry or crumbly. Neither one will lead to a pleasant icing
experience [...] and if the icing is sad and unappetizing, the cake will be as well!"
A good habit to get into is adding every ingredient a little at a time.
You can always add more, but you can't take it away.
Don't forget to flavor your buttercream. Buttercream just tastes like sugar or butter
if you don't add flavor. And while that may sound great at first, it won't be all that memorable.
Adding flavor can be pretty simple. All it takes is a dash of extract or a splash of citrus.
Play around and see what appeals to you the most. Pastry chef Jessica Lewis says:
"A splash of vanilla makes a world of difference on a finger licking buttercream."
You can also consider flavors like orange, lemon, or raspberry. But be forewarned:
If you use too much extract, your icing might become bitter, so always work a little at a time.
This flavoring is also important if you want your buttercream to taste buttery,
but not like butter. Try mixing a bit of lemon or orange zest into
the icing. Nutella or peanut butter can make a tasty difference, too.
"Slow and steady wins the race" is more than an old saying — it can be applied to homemade
icing, too. Melanie Moss, pastry chef and co-founder of Mini Melanie, tells Mashed:
"The key to getting smooth, light buttercream is more whipping and more time. Keep mixing
the buttercream icing with the whisk attachment, giving enough time for the butter to incorporate
in between additions. If your icing is looking lumpy, broken, or just ugly,
more whipping and time usually does the trick. If your machine is running out of gas,
heat helps as your butter may be too cold. Microwave a bit of the mixture
and temper it in to let your icing get some more heat to nicely combine."
If you're using icing that was made in advance and then refrigerated,
warm it to a good consistency while beating it. Penny Stankiewicz says:
"I usually pop the icing into the microwave for about 30 seconds to get it started, then put it
into a mixing bowl, and beat it with the paddle attachment until it gets to the right texture."
It will always come back together — you just need to be patient and
give it some time. Be careful not to over-warm it, or it will start to melt.
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