Cake Covering

There a few different types of icing that I can use.

Butter cream made by mixing butter and icing sugar with some flavouring and colouring.

Swiss meringue butter cream made with caster sugar melted in egg white with butter then beaten in.  It makes a very melt in the mouth version of the standard butter cream

Fondant icing hardens, but doesn’t go completed hard.  It is used to cover cakes and can also be used on cupcakes.  You can colour fondant or paint it with food colourings.

Royal icing goes really hard (think wedding cakes) and is for any features that need to be strong 3D shapes.

Cream cheese frosting is not one I fancy, but it’s made with cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice so this is a lower fat version.

Chocolate ganache is made by mixing cream and melted chocolate. 

Toffee topping made with butter, condensed milk, caster sugar and golden syrup.

Lemon crunch is made by sprinkling sugar over the cakes when they are fresh from the oven and then sprinkling on some lemon juice.

Ideas with Fondant & Royal Icing

Fondant can be used in several ways, coloured, painted, shaped. For example you could have the England flag painted on a white piece on fondant, or have a cross made out of red fondant and white fondant.

You can make simple flowers, animal faces, hearts, numbers etc, which can personalise the cupcakes to the receiver (birthday, Christmas etc)

Royal icing goes hard and isn’t that nice to eat (in my opinion it tastes like a hard chunk of sugar) but it’s ideal for making decorations that can be removed from the cake. 

For example:

Flowers (not the simple kind)

3D Butterflies

Simple shapes (hearts, dice, and numbers)

Chocolate, marzipan and sugar paste are also options for making shapes out of, but I’m not that brave yet.