The Icing on the Cake

March 26, 2012 by paladinipotpie Leave a comment

Over the years I’ve made at least 25 wedding cakes for friends and family, and my kids have often helped me. We’ve spent hours together figuring size and servings; and between the two of us, we’ve probably made a few thousand icing roses.

Yes, we’ve made thousands, but most of them we rejected as too flat or lopsided to use. But they were good for laughs. And they tasted good. Yes, they tasted good – that’s the icing on the cake!

Basic Rose Icing

This icing is easy to work with. It covers well, and it’s easy to squeeze out of a tube to make borders. And it will harden so completely that you can make flowers on wax paper and pick them up with your fingers as you arrange them on the cake.

1¼ cups Crisco

½ cup water

2 pounds confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the Crisco and water with electric mixer, and then add confectioners’ sugar a little bit at a time. Finally blend in the lemon juice and vanilla. Keep it covered when you are not actually using it, to prevent a shell from forming on the surface.

Chocolate Rose Icing

This is rich and yummy, even if you’re not a big chocolate lover. And it’s almost as easy to work with as regular rose icing.

Use the same basic recipe and directions as above, but substitute ½ to 1 cup of cocoa instead of confectioners’ sugar. It depends on how dark and chocolatey you want it to be.

*Use 4 tablespoon water and no lemon juice

Cream Cheese Icing

This is not easy to work with if you are making traditional roses and leaves, but it’s smooth and esy to swirl. It’s our absolute, hands down, favourite! It’s great for carrot cake, which I always make for John’s birthday. But it’s also delicious on every other kind of cake. It was Dan and Monica’s choice for their yellow wedding cake.

8 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temperature

1/2cup butter (not margarine), softened at room temperature

8 ounces confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix all ingredients until smooth.

Try to avoid eating it straight out of the bowl with a big spoon – you won’t be able to stop.

Author: paladinipotpie

Welcome! My name is Andrena Paladini and this is a blog about family and love and faith and fun. I call it Paladini Potpie because a potpie is like an adventure in a crust. You never know what might come up, but it’s always going to be good! Think of the best potpie you’ve ever eaten…hot flaky crust holding a rich savory sauce and all kinds of pieces of meat and vegetables…and who knows what? As a family, we’ve chosen to live within the parameters of God’s love and protection. This is the crust of our Paladini Potpie. The crust never changes. Within this crust, the savory sauce of family love binds it all together. That is also fairly constant. But beyond the crust and the sauce we can add just about anything! Good ideas come our way and we’ve adopted and adapted them to add to what John calls our treasure box of memories. These stories and ideas from John’s treasure box of memories are the ingredients I’m putting into our Paladini Potpie. (Okay, so this ridiculous mixing of metaphors about treasure boxes and potpies is exactly what I’m talking about. Silly and ungrammatically correct. But both illustrations work… so we’ll mix them together and it’ll be just fine!) John and I have been married for 30 years. Our children have wonderfully doubled in number since David married Amanda, Monica married Dan, and Matthew married Sarah. And the newest little treats that have been added to our potpie are six adorable grandchildren - Ethan, Angelina, Nathan, Audrey, Maleia and Caleb! I hope you’ll subscribe to my Paladini Potpie blog, and keep up with all the fun new ingredients I add. Hopefully you’ll enjoy our stories and ideas, and find something you’ll want to put into your own potpie! Bon appétit!