Baking cake is exciting if there are special occasions and important moments to celebrate in the family. Perhaps, you might have a birthday fast approaching, and you wanted to make a special cake to cherish the event within the ambience of your home.
The idea sounds great, but you might be worrying about frosting and melting issues. It seems to be a problem, especially if the weather is hot and you had encountered this issue in the past.
Not all people are excellent in baking, and some don’t have enough knowledge on how to keep frosting from melting. It is not that hard to produce good results when frosting a cake and other varieties of pastries.
Read the pieces of information below because it has everything that you may need to know about the subject. These are all practical guidelines that even a beginner will be able to follow.
Why Is the Frosting Melting?
The ingredients used for baking should be at room temperature.
Cold ingredients break the frost, but if they are too warm, the frosting won’t hold.
The fat provides the structure in the frosting. When whipped, it captures the air, making frosting light and separable.
Cool the Cake (Or Other Pastries)
The sole reason why people encounter issues with frosting and melting is that they do not have the patience to wait. You can’t take a cake out of the oven and frost it right away.
Before starting to frost, you must wait for a few hours to make sure that your cake cools down properly.
You can do something to make use of the time while waiting. If you want to do it faster, you can put it on a refrigerator. However, I don’t recommend this because it can damage your appliance.
This piece of advice applies to any form of sweets that you want to bake. You need to allow your pastry to cool if you are trying to frost them.
Need for a Cool Environment
One more issue to consider is that your house has no cooling system to do the frosting. It’s an advantage if you are living in an air-conditioned environment because it will be easier for you.
There are steps to be done to do the frosting. Some of these include opening your window, using fans to ventilate air, and shutting off unnecessary lighting.
It is best to work on this at room temperature to avoid any occurrence of problems. A kitchen area should be sufficiently fit to the needed working environment.
Transfer to Another Area
Some problems may occur if you transfer the cake to another location. It is difficult to frost in the middle of summer because it’s hot.
However, transferring to another area may not be necessary, but you may consider doing so if needed. Always maintain the coolness of the frosting as much as possible.
To keep the frosting, you may use a cooler. They can be used to prevent the melting of frost and for transporting baked goods.
If you are doing it for business, you may need to invest in coolers and ice packs to keep your goods fresh while delivering them. It’s not hard to do if you plan to make it happen.
Frosting Certain Types
There are types of frosting that have more melting issues than others. For example, a butter cream frosting is very tasty, but it dissolves easily in hot temperatures.
The idea of cooling can help you in preserving a cake with frost, but you could also use different types of frosting that do not dissolve easily.
The typical frosting has a shorter time of survival in hot weather.
Frosting Common Mistakes
Here are common mistakes you might not notice when frosting;
Making the Frosting Ahead of Time
According to Claire Saffitz, Bon Appetit’s associate editor, at least in some circumstances, this is a mistake. Never mix whipped cream in advance because they will wilt or droop.
Use whipped cream-based frostings only just before serving.
Wrong Frosting for the Job
There are four types of frosting that you may need to know.
American Style Frosting
It is just as simple as it is, an amount of butter, sugar to taste, milk to thin out, and any flavoring that you want. It is known to be a type of frosting that you could easily make. The ingredient dissolves quickly, and so it’s not perfect during summer.
Italian-Style Buttercream
It is made by slowly sprinkling hot sugar syrup into a sauce made with beaten eggs and sugar. This frost is greatly stable, meaning it can stand up to high temperatures.
Swiss-Style Buttercream
It is made by dissolving sugar over a double-boiler, then whisking into the meringue base. The frosting is more stable than basic butter-sugar American style frosting but less than Italian Style buttercream.
French-Style Buttercream
The most exceptional of all frostings, according to Saffitz, is made with incredibly rich egg yolks. It should be used in small amounts or softened with lighter and brighter flavors.
Balancing the Sweetness
Yes, frosting is supposed to be sweet. The best course of action is to reduce it with something like a pie. Balance the flavors, so your frosting tastes like butterfly, not like straight butter.
Adding Too Much Liquid
All the frosting should be thinned out with something like milk or simple syrup but do not add too much of them; it may result in a mixture that is extremely hard to perfect.
Always remember that you can add more anytime, but you can never take ingredients out.
Stopping the Mixer Too Soon
Some of the problems occur throughout the mixing process, which might take longer than you expected.
Doing a frosting takes under two minutes. It takes time for the ingredients to blend thoroughly.
Be patient, stick with it, and keep mixing. For sure, you will have a perfect frosting in no time.
Disadvantage of Frosting
Each serving of two tablespoons regular frosting has around 140 calories, the extent of this is not ideal for your health. So be mindful of the level of sugar you are consuming every day.
With its presence of sugar, some people may see frosting as dangerous to their wellness because it adds to the risk of having a heart threatening fats.
Also, the older ones must minimize their intake of sweet pastries to avoid high cholesterol and other related diseases.
Final Thoughts
You should have the experience to perform how to keep frosting from melting now. Using the information mentioned earlier, you can also observe mistakes and acknowledge the methods in the frosting process.
For the last part, you should not have to worry about your frost melting because now you know how to deal with it.
If the weather is too hot, then you already know that you will be needing a cooler for that, along with the other methods of frosting.
The temperature should not prevent you from savoring delicious frosted pastries when you plan to.
Always remember the tips above, so the next time you’re frosting pastries, you can manage it yourself. The temperature may play an important role, but you can always get good results if it is your goal.