The best frosting I’ve made so far.

I am not a big frosting or icing person. If you have read through this blog before, you’ll notice that most of my cakes go without it, because I think that it takes away from the flavour of the cake. Frostings are just too sweet for me, but when it comes to making sugar cookies for Christmas, I have to use it!

The trouble I’ve found is that most buttercream frostings I’ve made are too soft. I can never get them stiff enough without adding lots and lots of icing sugar, thus making them too sweet and inedible. Also, I like my white frosting to be white, not this off-white, buttery yellow colour that doesn’t take food colouring very well.

Happily, I came across a recipe in a gingerbread house kit that I bought. It’s terribly simple and super easy to make, and I will use it from now on whenever I need to make frosting.

The Recipe

1 egg white

A box of icing sugar

Method

1. Whip the egg white until soft peaks form.

2. Add icing sugar, a little bit at a time, until desired consistency is reached. The icing will harden when left to dry, and will also get shiny.

3. That’s it!

My Alterations

When I first used this recipe to make icing for our gingerbread house adventure, I made it very thick. Probably a bit too thick, because it started hardening while still inside the piping bags! Oops. I learned my lesson, though, because when I made it for my Christmas sugar cookies, I made it much softer and it was easier to spread. The icing still hardened as it dried, but it took a lot longer.

The Result

This icing is very easy to make and use. I added lots of different colours to it for my kids to decorate their cookies, and it worked very well. Even though the icing was watered down a bit because of the colouring, it still dried after a few hours so I could wrap them up.

The Verdict

This recipe will be a staple in my baking arsenal. It’s easy to remember, too, which is such a bonus. I like the sort of recipes where you can adjust them to your needs so easily.

The Rating

5/5, definitely. See how pretty my cookies looked?

Tutorial 2: Separating egg yolks from whites the easy way

A few years ago, when I watched all those fancy-pants cooking shows, I saw Nigella Lawson separate her egg yolks with an incredibly easy and simple method. If you are at all squeamish about touching the slimy innards of chicken eggs, beware: this may not be the best method for you.

Simply put, you just dump the egg into your hand (over the mixing bowl) and let the egg white dribble through your fingers. I used to pass the yolk from one half of the broken shell to the other, letting the white fall out on its own a little bit at a time, but the yolk would sometimes break on a sharp shell corner and all my hard work was ruined.

Gently holding the egg yolk in your hand, with fingers slightly apart to let the egg white escape, but not enough to drop the yolk, and you have easily and quickly separated the two. No hassle, but unfortunately, a lot of mess.

I don’t particularly enjoy the cold slimy egg whites leftover on my hands, but it works so I’ll stick with this method for now. The sacrifices I make for my cakes….