Cream cheese frosting or frosting with butter - This is how cupcakes and cakes become particularly beautiful
Created: 07/18/2022 17:07
By: Anne Tessin
Glamorous decorations can be conjured up on cakes and cupcakes with frosting.
© Florence McGinn/Imago
Anyone who likes to bake will come across the term “Frosting” again and again.
This has nothing to do with freezing, but is a delicious highlight for cakes, muffins and co.
Frosting is a coating of butter and powdered sugar.
Frosting can also be made with cream cheese.
Too liquid, too solid - you can avoid many frosting mistakes.
"To frost a cake" - baking professionals and hobby bakers know immediately that we are not talking about freezing a cake.
Rather, a frosting is a coating of butter or cream cheese that gives cupcakes, muffins, tarts and cakes the finishing touch.
It tastes delicious, but also harbors some sources of error.
First of all, we need to decide on a
basic recipe
.
You can make a frosting from
butter
, but also from
cream cheese
.
Frosting recipe with butter: basic recipe for classic frosting
Ingredients:
150g softened butter
250g powdered sugar
Vanilla flavor or the pulp of a vanilla bean
pinch of salt
Preparation:
In a mixing bowl, add the softened (but not runny) butter and sift in all of the powdered sugar to avoid lumps.
Beat the mixture with the hand mixer, first on a low speed and then on a medium speed, until the butter and powdered sugar have combined.
Now add the aroma or the vanilla pulp and the salt according to taste and stir thoroughly again.
Depending on how firm you need the frosting, you can change the consistency with a little hot water.
Liquid frosting works well in a piping bag, while thicker frosting is better for spreading.
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Cream Cheese Frosting Basic Recipe
Ingredients:
100 g soft butter
100 grams of cream cheese
100 g powdered sugar
Vanilla flavor or the pulp of a vanilla bean
Preparation:
Using a hand mixer, beat the butter together with the powdered sugar.
Then stir in the cream cheese and flavoring with the whisk until a homogeneous cream is obtained.
This frosting variant with cream cheese can be found
in American recipes in
particular .
She's a little less cute.
As an alternative to cream cheese, you can also use
mascarpone, firm quark or yoghurt
.
With the latter, however, the frosting could become too soft.
Frosting Recipes Mistake 1: The frosting tastes too sweet
Did you use the specified amount of icing sugar and find the frosting far too sweet?
Then you can
save the cream with some cream cheese
, even if you actually wanted to make a classic frosting with butter and powdered sugar.
The cream cheese balances the flavor without making the cream runny.
A pinch of salt can also give the frosting more depth of flavor.
Frosting too runny: Error 2 with frosting recipes
Difference buttercream and frosting:
Pudding is often used in German buttercream, which makes it lighter.
Especially if you want to use the frosting to squirt small toppings onto cupcakes or muffins, it's annoying if the mass becomes too runny.
This happens quickly, especially with the variant with cream cheese, because the cheese becomes liquid if you stir it for too long.
It is therefore important that you first whip the butter with the icing sugar and only then add the cream cheese.
After that you should
not stir for too long
, but only until the mass is homogeneous.
Mistake 3: Frosting is too hard
On the other hand, if the frosting is too hard for you, it will clog the spout of your piping bag.
You can easily counteract this
with hot water or some milk
.
Only add the liquid in small sips so as not to miss the perfect consistency.
Error 4: The frosting contains air bubbles
They are desirable in a dough, but annoying in a frosting: air bubbles.
They form when you whip the frosting up too high.
If you just want to spread the frosting, the air pockets are not a problem.
However, as soon as you process it with a piping bag, the
bubbles make it impossible to work cleanly
.
So only whip the cream on low or medium speed.
Tip:
If you want to color the frosting, please do not use liquid food coloring.
These bring too much moisture into the cream and make it mushy quickly.
It is better to use pastes or powders.