Everyone loves confectionery . Cookies, muffins, cakes, pies, gingerbread cookies - all this improves the mood. And when they are also beautifully decorated, they look twice as appetizing. Professional confectioners create works of art that sometimes it’s even a pity to eat. Housewives today also do not lag behind them in the desire to make a real holiday for relatives.
Decoration sweets
Decorating cakes and other pastries is very diverse. Since ancient times, they are decorated with various creams, fruits, chocolate chips, nuts and coconut. A more difficult option is to fill the jelly, sugar fondant coating, chocolate icing (ganache). Foreign notions came to us: marzipan, mastic and icing. These are more complex baking cover options, including a variety of figures and decorative elements. Aisle decoration is considered the height of confectionery art. Some masters create masterpieces from which they are simply breathtaking. However, knowing some secrets, each hostess with a certain dexterity and a share of patience will be able to amaze her guests.
Aising - what is it?
From English, this word is translated as “icing”, the full name is “Royal Icing”. Aising came to us from England, where confectioners at the court of monarchs decorated cakes in this way. This is a mass for drawing and creating edible jewelry based on protein and sugar. Aising is different in composition and consistency depending on the purpose: contour decor, air decorations or sculpting products.
Kinds:
- Plastic - used for sculpting jewelry and creating lace. The helpers here will be a silicone mat for ice and molds (silicone molds). The mass is placed in the base, slightly dried, carefully removed and decoratively laid on the cake. Plastic icing is somewhat different from the classic one - in composition it is closer to mastic.
- Classic - a more liquid mass, which is applied directly to the confectionery, or the decor is done on a stencil, and after solidification, the details are folded into figures. It has a very fragile structure.
We’ll tell you how to make a classic icing for gingerbread, cookies, cakes and other pastries.
Cooking process
The recipe for icing is actually incredibly simple. You will need:
- icing sugar - 150 g,
- raw egg white - 1 pc.,
- lemon juice - 1 tsp.
From this composition, a rather large amount of mass is obtained, which is enough to decorate a small cake or a kilogram of gingerbread. Any pastry looks much more appetizing with a decor such as aising. How to cook it? Consider this process step by step.
- Separate the protein from the yolk. Make sure that not a drop of yolk gets into a bowl of protein. If this happens, better take another egg.
- Beat the whisk with a whisk or mixer at low speed. No need to whip it into lush foam - just knead until smooth.
- Add the sifted icing sugar in small portions without ceasing to beat the mass.
- At the end, pour in lemon juice, which will give the glaze a shine.
The perfect decoration for the pastry is ready. Nothing complicated, right?
Consistency
The amount of powdered sugar and the whipping time may vary slightly depending on what your icing is for. Aising is usually distinguished by density:
- Mass consistency of thick sour cream. It is obtained by using a slightly smaller amount of powder. It resembles our usual sugar icing, which is decorated with Easter cakes. Such an aising is used for gingerbread cookies and cookies, the top of which is poured homogeneous in an even layer. The readiness of the mass can be checked by drawing it with a knife. For some time, a trace remains from the cut, which is gradually smoothed out, and the glaze becomes homogeneous and perfectly even again. If this does not happen, it means that you have beaten the mass too much, and such an aising will not work for pouring - the top of the cookies will be ribbed and uneven. However, do not be upset, because you just prepared the next version of the glaze.
- Soft peaks. Such an aising is ideal for inscriptions and contours of drawings, linear decor, which is applied directly to the confectionery product. Readiness is checked very simply: remove a spoon or a whisk from the protein mass - the icing should hang from it with soft peaks, slightly bending depending on the rotation of the spoon.
- Solid peaks. This is a denser mass. When a spoon is delivered, the icing stretches behind it and remains on the surface with firm, solid peaks. Such an aising is ideal for squeezing patterns from a pastry bag with various nozzles directly onto a cake or cookie. Also, such a glaze is suitable for complex jewelry, which is first squeezed onto a stencil, and after solidification are assembled into figures.
Little secrets
Royal frosting seems unbelievable, and are you afraid to even try it? Do not worry, use the classic recipe, pay attention to some nuances, and you will see - preparing an aising will be easy. You will surely succeed!
Color
Glaze can be colored using food colors. To do this, divide the mass into several parts and add the desired shade to each. Dyes come in with different properties and degrees of intensity, so add a little color a little while mixing the mass well. Use the instructions printed on the package.
Powdered sugar
Making icing is possible only with powder - sugar will not work here, as it will not have time to dissolve and make the mass heavy. Moreover, it is advisable to sift the icing sugar before, saturating with oxygen. If you have a good electric mill, you can grind icing sugar yourself.
Consistency
You can adjust the mass density. If you beat it too much and it turns out to be too liquid, just add the powdered sugar. If the icing is very dense, it will be difficult to squeeze it out of the pastry bag. In this case, add egg white to it.
Storage
If you have not used the entire mass immediately, you can store it in a tightly closed container for 3-5 days. Remember that glaze hardens quickly in the air. You can use the remaining icing for cookies. It can be any recipe, except for wet, too porous baking.
Lemon acid
If desired, a glaze component such as lemon juice can be replaced with citric acid.
Create figures
If you create volumetric figures by squeezing the mass onto a stencil, grease it with a little bit of olive oil first for easier separation of dried parts. Ordinary sunflower oil is not suitable here.
To create volumetric colors and other figures, apply icing on the stencil, and then put it on any curved surface. For example, a flower can be placed in a cup by spreading the leaves out; butterflies - on the fold of the book (when they dry, you get the fluttering effect).
Incredibly beautiful large volumetric jewelry from aising: shoes, carriages, houses, towers and more. It seems that it is impossible to do, but in fact, everything is not so scary. These figures are made up of many individual parts, which are previously applied to the stencil and dried, and then connected together with a cream.
Remember that the average drying time of the glaze is 12 hours, so you need to apply it on the finished cake in advance. Iceing for cookies also takes time to dry, otherwise the cakes will simply stick together. It is better to start preparing volumetric or prefabricated figures, which are preliminarily applied to the stencil, in a day, so that they can dry well and easily assemble. Do them with a margin, because the parts are very fragile and can break during the assembly process.
Common mistakes
It seems that they did everything according to the recipe, but the icing did not work out? Here are the most common mistakes that can completely ruin the icing:
- Lemon juice must be clearly added according to the recipe - one teaspoon per protein from one egg and 150 grams of powder. If you put too much protein, the glaze will be too fragile.
- Carefully add icing sugar, depending on the required consistency. Too liquid mass will spread over the baking, too dense it will be difficult to squeeze out of the pastry bag. Adjust the density of the icing with protein and powder.
- It takes air to dry the glaze. Do not put the decorated product or drying parts of future figures in the refrigerator - the aising will become sour and flow.
- For the same reason, do not apply mass to cream or wet biscuits. Application on dry biscuits and cakes, pre-coated with a base - mastic, marzipan, ganache.
Accessories
You can’t do without auxiliary accessories if you are preparing an icing. What it is? First of all - a pastry bag. It is impossible to work with hands with classical royal glaze of any density, so you can’t do without a pastry bag or syringe. Using various nozzles, you can create beautiful patterns, but more often glaze is drawn in straight lines. The real helpers will be the icing pencils, acting like a syringe, but with their help, especially thin lines are created.
Stencils, silicone mats and molds help create complex patterned jewelry that is hard to make by hand. You can apply the pattern or its details to plain baking paper, having previously laid the contours of the future product under it.
Jewelry
Professional confectioners create real works of art from ice. No wonder it is called royal icing - the confectionery decorated with it is truly worthy of kings. We will reveal some of the secrets of the masters, using which you can prepare the most beautiful jewelry from aising at home.
Biscuits
Glazing cookies and gingerbread cookies is a great start to your workout. Drawings can be both the simplest and the most complicated by a large number of small parts. Aising for cookies, the recipe of which can be any (sand and ginger is well suited), can be of two types: soft peaks (for contours and drawings) and the consistency of thick sour cream (for filling).
If you want to completely fill the surface of the cookie with icing, apply a contour along the edges, let it dry a little and fill the rest with a soft mass. The circuit will restrain her, not allowing to settle. Use thin-contoured nozzles or icing pencils to apply fine lines and patterns.
Lace of kings
The delicate lace that decorates the cakes using icing looks incredibly beautiful. What it is? This is an edible decoration made of glaze of very delicate work. There are three options for creating it:
- Application of a plastic glaze to a silicone mat. After drying, this lace can be bent and laid as you like. It is quite convenient to use, but it cannot be cooked from a classic glaze.
- Drawing a lace-shaped pattern directly on the surface of the cake using a pastry bag with a thin nozzle or icing pencils.
- Drawing lace on the stencil. After drying, they are carefully transferred to baking.
Aising: a master class
The airy lace, covering the cake with a dome, or decorating with balls looks very beautiful, and it seems that it is impossible to do it manually. However, having learned a couple of secrets, each housewife will be able to perform such a miracle. Of course, icing will help in this. How to cook it? Introducing step by step instructions:
- Take a regular inflatable balloon. Wash it well and inflate to the size you want to see the final decor.
- Prepare the glaze to the consistency of solid peaks. A softer mass simply drains, and the pattern does not work.
- Fill a pastry bag with a thin nozzle or an icing pencil.
- Squeeze the icing with a thin branchy thread around the ball, simulating lace, braiding the ball fully or half.
- Leave to dry for at least 12 hours. After that, pierce the ball and carefully pull out the rest.
Just a magical cake decoration ready!
Conclusion
From this article, you learned everything about icing: what it is and how to cook it. Adhering to simple rules, even at home you can create incomparable culinary masterpieces worthy of the highest praise.