Baking Post 2016 No.35- Icing/piping techniques part two

Hiya guys! 

This week's post is a lead on from a few posts from the past, based on icing and piping techniques. As well as this blog being a pleasurable activity for me, it also is a place where I share my passion with others. In my opinion, the way to do so is teach them what you know or what you've learnt. And what better way to do that then to showcase my way of practicing my icing and piping skills?!😊😀

First of, below is the  common recipe I use in order to whip up yummy buttercream!

250g of icing sugar,sifted

80g of unsalted butter, at room temp

2 tablespoons of whole milk

a couple drops of vanilla extract

Method:

Beat the icing sugar and butter with either a handheld or freestanding mixer with a paddle attachment or a electric whisk on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.  Turn the mixer down to slow speed.

Combine the milk and vanilla extra together,then add in into the butter mixture gradually. Once all the milk has been incorporated, turn the mixer up to a high speed. Beat until the icing is light and fluffy. Minimum time would be at least 5 minutes.

This is the typical vanilla-flavored buttercream. However, to make the brown sugar buttercream, I adjusted the recipe by firstly adding 125g of brown sugar along with the butter and beating for a really long time,using only halve the quantity of icing sugar.

Now onto piping bags. I believe I haven't touched up on piping bags in my posts but it's very important and the main part of actually piping.😜

So the many three sizes of piping bags which would be the most essential to have are: small Piping bags, medium-sized piping bags and large piping bags. Whenever I'm piping icing, I usually opt for the medium-sized ones, depending on what I'm piping and what pattern I'm aiming for. With there being a variety of piping bags sizes, there is a HUGE collection of piping nozzles. There are literally hundreds of them. Below are the nozzles which I own and the ones I reach out for the most.

To begin with is my absolute favorite nozzle: Open star tip,which is usually used to pipe onto cupcakes, cakes,biscuits,pastries-the list is endless. They can create lightly textured ruffles when swirled continuously. Used at an angle, these tips create small shell -type dollops of buttercream or royal icing — perfect for adding cute borders at the base of iced cakes. Otherwise, piped directly overhead and in short bursts they make "gems," which are great for piping out meringue kisses, mini-cupcakes or tiny bursts of buttercream on top of a home made cake.

Next up is the "closed" star nozzle. This type of nozzle is perfect for piping ruffled buttercream on top of cupcakes as well as adding borders onto cakes,cookies, depending on their size. It has a more defined texture then open star tips due to the ridges being tighter.

Following on is the plain round nozzle. This is mainly used to pipe simple,rounded swirls onto cupcakes. In slightly smaller sizes, they're great for adding dots of detail onto cakes as well as being perfect for piping Swiss dots onto cakes with royal icing.

This succeeds to the "petal or ruffling" nozzle.

The,what I call the "ruffling nozzle" is ideal for adding extraordinary buttercream ruffles to cakes or for piping out impressive flowers,such as the famous rose, on top of cupcakes and cookies. 

Volia! Those you are your top 4 nozzles. So onto practicing. I had used this tip from my favorite baking vlogger, Cupcake Jemma, about practising piping. This is to just to practise on grease-proof paper first, therefore, when you feel confident enough to pipe onto your cupcakes or cookies, you can just scrap the icing back into the bowl for piping! It's a simple as!

This really worked for me as I could practise as many times as you want and make an excuse to make buttercream!😋😋😋😋

So to put my piping skills to the test, I  remade the previous recipe post of Apple Crumble Cupcakes and here are the results:

Before

 




When practising.....

 





Prior to ending this post...

I've updated the Apple Crumble Cupcake Ending pictures with this week's re-take. If you want to take a look, click here!

Favorite song of the week: Cashmere Cat- Trust Nobody ft Selena Gomez,Tory Lanez

For more help in making the "perfect" buttercream, click here!

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Thanks for reading and I'll hopefully see you next week!

#sweetreats xxx