Tag Archives: Technique

A Line and Some Dots

Sometimes fully icing or flooding a cookie just can’t happen.  It can’t happen because there isn’t enough time between the request  and when the cookies are due. Or, it shouldn’t happen because sometimes a line and some dots on a cookie are the best way the cookie can convey its true message.

Like this one.  A left-handed Ibanez acoustic guitar.

Graceful.  Elegant.  And leaving an empty space in the hearts of those who loved him so.

For you, Mikey.

Elevate Your Work

Embellishing a cookie or 200 with meticulous detail can be back-breaking work.  If you’ve ever written, swirled, dotted or piped intricacies on a 3 inch edible canvas, you know what I’m talking about.

You might, if you’re anything like me, work standing, not sitting.  Standing, leaning, bending, hunching sometimes for hours on end.

I NEVER sit while decorating cookies.  First of all, I can’t outline a cookie to save my life while sitting.  My counters are higher than most kitchen counters.  My torso is short and my legs are long, so when I sit, that counter is practically at the same level as my neck.  Definitely not a good angle from which to work.

Years ago, an accomplished wedding cake designer told me she never lets her employees sit while working.  With a packed daily production schedule, she was concerned with employing assistants displaying deft skills and record-breaking finishing times.  Allowing workers to sit, she discovered, made them too comfortable, extinguishing the spring in their pastry bag wielding steps.

So, the question becomes how to work effiiciently and quickly, without becoming the next Hunchback of Notre Dame?

Answer:  Cake turntable, or, as J calls it, the twirly thing.

It’s not just for frosting cakes.  By balancing your tray of cookies on the turntable you can stand, bend from the waist, as opposed to hunching over, and, because it twirls, you don’t have to reach unnaturally over to that cookie in the far left hand corner of the tray.  Twirling the tray means you’re less likely to drop something on a freshly flooded cookie, because you’ve easily turned it out of the way.

If you don’t have a turntable, think about investing in one.  Your straighter back and your un-huched shoulders will thank you.  So will your cookies.

Spread the Word

Spread can be such a lovely word.  You know, like something soft and creamy that is slathered on bread and tastes divine.

Like describing a tableful of food served to friends and family:  ’That was some spread Sheila put out”.  (Don’t ask me who Sheila is.  She’s my imaginary hostess for purposes of this post.)

It’s a great verb, too.  Like when you spread the blanket out on the ground for a picnic.  Or when you’ve spread the Sunday New York Times out in front of you to read for hours while you sip your never ending mug of coffee.

Spread can also take on an ugly image.  Take those men on New York subways who sit with their legs spread out so far that they take up three seats AND trip people in the aisle.  Don’t even get me started on that spread.

And then there’s the spread that really sticks in my craw.  You know what I’m talking about.  You use your favorite animal cookie cutter, for instance, carefully cutting out  row after row of lovely cookies to decorate.  Bake them at the appropriate temperature for the appropriate amount of time and what happens?  You’ve baked up a batch of Rorschach cookies.  The dreaded cookie spread.

Do you know how this can occur?  By being overzealous when creaming the butter and sugar.  You CAN overbeat the butter and sugar, resulting in too much incorporation of air in the dough, which then leads to the aforemetioned cookie disaster that you really want to avoid.

Here’s how to cream butter and sugar so this won’t happen:

Start with room temperature butter.  Not melted butter, but butter that’s perfectly soft to the touch.  Scale it and the sugar into the mixer bowl.

Start your engine….um, I mean, your mixer.   A medium speed will work perfectly well.

Stop after the combination begins to look like this and scrape the sides of the bowl down with a rubber spatula.

Resume mixing.

When the mixture has been flung via centrifugal force all over the sides of the bowl like this,

you’re pretty much done.  That’s what creamed butter and sugar should look like.

Proceed with the rest of the cookie recipe and see if you notice any difference when you bake off the cookies.

Then, spread the word.

A Royal Dilemma

I’ve been enamoured of royal icing ever since one of the chef/instructors in culinary school taught me “the love of the royal”, as she called it.  Royal icing, at its core, is nothing more than egg white and confectioner sugar.  In its stiff stage, royal icing is the confectionery equivalent of super strength concrete, able to support all kinds of sugar showpieces and gingerbread skyscrapers.  In its flood stage, it’s the paint we cookie makers use for our creations.

For many years, I used liquid pasteurized egg whites in my royal icing.  Even buying in bulk from my purveyor, I still wasted a lot of those whites.  And that’s like throwing money down the sink.  That’s when I began using egg white powder.

Now, egg white powder is just that.  Dehydrated egg whites.  They’re available in supermarkets under the brand name “Deb-El Just Whites”.  Again, I buy mine from my purveyor in large quantities.  They’re great…I hydrate the amount I need, if it’s too much I can store in the ‘fridge for a few days.  No more waste!  And, there’s a substantial shelf-life for the whites, so I don’t worry about them going bad on me.

The thing is, I see that many of my cohorts in cookiedom out there are using meringue powder.  The meringue powder ingredient list begins with cornstarch.  Cornstarch is a thickening agent, I’ll give you that.  Then comes the egg white powder.  Next up is gum arabic, an emulsifier, calcium sulfate (?), citric acid,  cream of tartar, silicon something or other (as a whitening agent) and, last but not least, artificial flavor.

Maybe I’m missing something?  IF the recipe for royal icing is, as I stated earlier, egg whites and confectioner sugar, why bother with the meringue powder?  Cornstarch is already in my confectioner sugar; that’s what makes it confectioner sugar.  Citric acid?  I add fresh lemon juice.  Cream of tartar?  I skip it.  Whitening agent?  I don’t think so….keep beating enough air into royal icing and it’ll whiten on its own.  Artificial flavor?  Not on my watch.  Again, I’ll add lemon juice for a bit of flavor, not to mention that the citric acid in the lemon juice acts as a speed dryer in the royal, too.

I will grant you that the meringue powder is a bit less expensive than egg white powder.  I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I think you may end up using more of it than the egg white powder.  Which makes it a non-money saver in my humble opinion.

Here’s what I do:  I measure out 1/3 c. dried egg white powder and add 1 c. of warm water to reconstitute.  Let the water sit for a bit to fully hydrate the powder, then whisk gently to dissolve.  Then, use 3 oz. egg whites for a pound of confectioner sugar.  Add a teaspoon of lemon juice.  That’s it.  Now, I grant you, that the humidity level in your area will determine how much egg white you use.

Try it yourself and let me know if I’ve been helpful or just a royal pain.

POST SCRIPT:  Please use 3 oz. reconstituted whites per one pound of confectioners sugar.  Reconsitute the dry whites according to the manufacturer’s instructions.