I think there’s something in the oven/Kenwood. This time
round, I’m tackling something else that has gone horribly wrong…cream cheese *sulk*
icing. It goes without saying that when you make one mistake, you put it under the
carpet and carry on trying. But when you make a second, (cringe shields at the
ready) feelings of self-doubt start to pave their way in.
I definitely thought
about avoiding this post altogether, but then I thought about how many times I haven’t
been satisfied with my cream cheese icing, so it was inevitable…I just had to learn from my mistakes. The
icing was poured atop the all-London
Curly Whirly Cake made from a Konditor & Cook recipe found here, the
picture of the cake is what I aimed for…Decoration wasn’t even an option after
this disaster went down! But try not to be fooled, the cake was densely satisfying!
I’ve wrote about some
of the things I think will help you not to achieve this big, runny, gloopy
mess. Here we go (again):
Straining
Its
absolutely necessary to strain your packets of cream cheese before you add it
to the mixing bowl because extra fluid will contribute to a runny mess. Get rid
of all that curdled juice by dangling the packet over the sink, your cream
cheese is solid at this point (and hopefully will stay that way) so you don’t have
to worry about it falling out of the packet!
Above Room
Temperature
There is no baking rule that your cream cheese has to be at room temperature, do not
treat it like you would butter and eggs. As long as it’s not straight out of
the fridge, you won’t have a problem like I did. Let the packets rest at a room
temperature for a maximum of ten minutes.
Beating
Now, the
recipe I used instructed that I melted the butter and added it to my already
whipped cream cheese and icing sugar. Naturally, you’re going to assume that that’s
where I went wrong, right? Wrong. The cream cheese had already loosened into a
form of gloppy-ness before I added the butter! This is because I mixed the cream cheese and icing for too
long at too high a speed. You can avoid over beating by whipping room temperature
butter and all of the icing sugar until pale and fluffy, and then adding the cream cheese. This will
give you a thick cream cheese, but one with a dominant buttery flavour which isn’t very
nice, so to avoid this altogether take a look at my next pointer.
Meringue powder
Forget
for a moment that meringue powder adds a crusting quality to your icing and
listen up. Adding 2 tbsp. to 1 batch works chemical wonders
into your icing, it will give it pipe-able and spreadable stability. Also, the great
thing about this cheesy trick is that it won't give off any bad flavours
either, it will simply stop your cream cheese icing from looking like mine
does, which none of you want, surely!
Whipped cream
Another
great tip which I’ve yet to try yet is adding whipped cream to your cream
cheese. This not only gives height, fluffiness and stability to your icing, but
also, I think, would give a better flavour! Whip some double cream together and
simply fold it into your icing. Also, if you don’t want to regurgitate a
rainbow - remove 1 tsp vanilla extract from your recipe and replace with 1 tsp
fresh lemon juice, this will also keep your icing from having an off-white
look.
Love Em xx
Great post and some great tips! Going to try them out as I always have trouble with icing too!
ReplyDeletethanks kat, let me know how it goes :)
DeleteGreat tips. I've had my fair share of cream cheese icing and now just stick to good ol buttercream or butter icing x
ReplyDeletei know how you feel, but it just never tastes as good as cream cheese!
DeleteOh no poor cream cheese icing! Your cake looks deliciously dense and fudgy though. Never heard of adding meringue powder to the icing, cool tip. I've not had much bother with cream cheese icing (so far, touch wood) but tend to follow the Hummingbird Bakery method of mixing the butter and icing sugar together for 5 minutes before adding the cream cheese and not over mixing it.
ReplyDeletethanks jo. yes you should deffo try adding some, it gives real stability. dont you find that the hummingbird recipe is oh so too sweet?
DeleteGreat post, I'll definitely have to remember the overwhipping advice! I've only made cream cheese icing a few times and I remember it being a little runny once before.
ReplyDeletereally! what do you use as your frosting recipe then? theres such a fine
Deleteline between overwhipping and not overwhipping, its crazy!
Hi! Thanks for your post. I've been searching the web for different tips to make my cream cheese frosting stiff. Your tips are very helpful.
ReplyDeleteThat's okay! im glad this post is of use to you!
DeleteNo need for meringue powder or whipped cream. Just pop the cream cheese icing in the fridge until it's the consistency you want. Worked a treat for me!
ReplyDelete