My Favourite Icing Recipe

As you may or may not know, I have a love hate relationship with making icing. Actually, I do not have any love for making icing, I hate it. Making me make icing and icing a cake is the equivalent of making me clean out of my rabbit’s toilet box.. therefore torture.

However, whilst unpacking my books onto my new book shelf, I came across my Masterchef Australia The Cookbook Volume 1. Whilst I was flicking through the cookbook, I came across a butter icing recipe that looked really easy to make.

One night, I decided to give it a go. I was quite surprised with the great result I got from making the icing for the first time using this recipe. The icing was not too sweet, smooth, easy to spread and tasted delicious. I think I may have gotten so excited, that I jumped for joy.

The recipe is so easy to make:

Butter Icing

125 grams of unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups of icing sugar

approximately 1 tablespoon of milk

Method

Use electric beaters to beat the butter until light and creamy. Add the icing sugar a little at a time, beating constantly. Add half the milk and beat until combined. I added a little bit of thickened cream to make the icing more creamy.

So simple!

To confess, I did not fully follow the method step by step. After beating the butter, I tossed the rest into the bowl and then mixed it with my electric beaters, until it was all combined. Unfortunately, I became impatient.

My next goal is to master the art of piping icing onto cake. I am so hopeless at piping icing, that it is tragic.

 

 

 

 

Buttermilk Chocolate Cake

Just like eggs, buttermilk is a regular food staple in our fridge. Every Sunday, my husband will wait until I am awake and he will cook me Buttermilk Pancakes. Unfortunately every week, the remaining buttermilk would get thrown in the bin. I decided that I would find a recipe online that uses buttermilk, so the buttermilk would not go waste again.

I spent twenty minutes searching online for a recipe that was easy to make, looked delicious and did not take a long time in the oven to make. I finally found a recipe for Buttermilk Chocolate Cake and the recipe looked quite easy to make.

I was considering being lazy, by making the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake into cupcakes, but decided that this time, I would not be lazy and make it as a whole cake. This decision to make a whole cake was not an easy decision to make, because I hate making whole cakes. I will confess, though out the mixing process, I may have changed my mind a few times.

The Buttermilk Chocolate Cake was really straight forward to make. I did not find it difficult at all. My only concern was that I may over mix the cake mix, but in the end it worked out fine. I decided to change the recipe by cooking the cake at 150 degrees Celsius as opposed to the recipes suggestion of 180 Degrees Celsius. I decided to do this, so the cake would not burn.

In less time than stated in the recipe, my Buttermilk Chocolate Cake was ready. I will admit, the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake did not look one bit sexy, it had “rustic” cracks in it. But as my lovely Twitter friends said, it is not about how it looks, it is about how it tastes.

I allowed the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake to cool down and I started making Buttercream icing to cover the “rustic” cracks.

Once the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake was cooled down, I iced the cake. The icing did not look like a masterpiece, but it did taste delicious.

I decided to cut a slice of the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake and have a taste. The Buttermilk Chocolate Cake tasted so delicious. I was really impressed with the texture, it was moist and fluffy and the chocolate was just right. The icing was a perfect match for the cake, but next time I may make chocolate icing instead.

Overall I was extremely pleased with the result.

The Buttermilk Chocolate recipe can be found here:

http://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/dairy-food-and-recipes/recipes/recipe-detail/buttermilk_chocolate_cake.aspx *they have since removed this recipe link

Note: I used my own icing recipe