chocolate - How To Cook

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Frosting – Icing on the Cake!

April 10, 2012 / SimAuthor / 4 comments

Today’s recipe is a simple recipe for butter frosting or icing as we like to say on this side of the pond! Having an quick and easy frosting recipe on hand is always a good idea. You never know when you will need a reliable frosting recipe at 10pm when your whipping up a forgotten batch of cupcakes for tomorrows school bake sale!

Please see the end of the recipe for frosting variations.
This recipe will provide frosting cover and two internal layers for one large cake.

Frosting Ingredients

500 grams Pure Icing Sugar (confectioners sugar)
500 grams Unsalted Butter
pinch Salt

Frosting Method

Ensure the butter is very soft. Leave it out of the fridge overnight if possible. Or heat it at a very, very low temperature for a short time in the microwave.
Sift the icing sugar. (Ensures there are no pesky lumps in the frosting.)
Whip the butter and sugar, with the pinch of salt, in a mixer until the mix is light and fluffy. (Start the mixer off slowly of all the icing sugar will end up around the kitchen!)
Add any flavourings now.
That’s it. The frosting is ready to use!

Tip – Once you have iced your cakes, leave it out of the fridge to prevent the frosting from hardening.

Frosting Variations

Chocolate – add sweetened or unsweetened melted chocolate to taste.
Lemon – add juice of 3 large lemons.
Rum – add rum to taste.

Tip – Flavouring essences and colourings are also very good to use. This opens up the flavour combinations for your frosting to be limited only by your imagination…. Banana, coconut, orange, choc-mint, coffee, cinnamon, vanilla and many, many more!

If you want to be truly professional looking then you should use a boiled butter cream recipe. This takes more time, skill and practice. But I assure you the results are well worth it. Stay tuned and I will post a perfect recipe for it later in the week.

Lemon Frosting ingredients

Whip the butter.

Add the sifted icing sugar.

Light and fluffy.

All ready.

The icing on the cake.

Category: Baking, Dessert, Featured, Sweets / Tags: cake, chocolate, cupcake, frosting, icing, lemon, recipe, rum

Chocolate Pudding Recipe – Self Saucing – Simple and Easy

February 18, 2012 / SimAuthor / No comments

Kids and adults alike love this recipe. It is very ‘chocolatey’. A traditional steamed chocolate sponge with lots of rich chocolate sauce. Its very simple to make and can be adapted to different flavours such as golden syrup or lemon. (See the bottom of the post.)

Ingredients

Sponge
125 grams Plain Flour (or use self-raising and omit the baking powder)
pinch Salt
60 grams Castor Sugar (or any sugar you fancy)
2 teaspoon Baking Powder
2 Tablespoon Dutch Cocoa Powder (or any good quality cocoa powder)
1/2 cup Milk
40 grams Butter
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Topping
180 g Brown Sugar (or any sugar)
2 Tablespoon Dutch Cocoa Powder (or any good quality cocoa powder)
1 cup Boiling Water

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Butter a pudding dish. (750ml approximately).
3. Sift the flour, salt, castor sugar, baking powder and cocoa into a bowl.
4. Melt the butter (don’t get it hot) (in the microwave is easiest!).
5. Add the milk, egg and vanilla to the butter and mix well.
6. Add the milk mix to the dry ingredients and again mix well.
7. Pour into the pudding dish.
8. Mix the brown sugar and cocoa powder for the topping and sprinkle over pudding mix.
9. Lastly, carefully pour over cup of boiling water.
10. Place in oven and bake for 40 – 45 minutes. (Pudding should be puffed up and feel firm when lightly pressed with fingertips.)

Serve with cream, ice-cream, custard or all three! Enjoy.

Golden Syrup Pudding
Omit the cocoa powder in the sponge mix.
Substitute golden syrup for the cocoa powder (same amount) in the topping mix.

Lemon Pudding
Omit the cocoa powder in the sponge mix and instead use zest of 1 lemon.
Substitute Juice of 2 Lemons (about 6 Tbls) for the cocoa powder.
Reduce the boiling water by 6 Tbls (approx 100ml).