Marshmallow Frosting/Icing, second try

Click here to see how my first experiment on marshmallow frosting turned out. As I have said on my post, the output was not runny but it didn’t hold either. My fellow homebakers gave me several recipes but it was Kate’s recipe that I liked best, simple and very easy to make.

Marshmallow Frosting Recipe

4 eggwhites
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Kate’s notes:

make sure your syrup is cooked to the right consistency. i use thread test all the time. Beat eggwhites until fine na wala nang bubbles then start adding your syrup in thin streams. pag naubos na syrup beat til it holds shape. pag hand mixer it takes me 15 minutes to get the consistency i want. hope this helps.

Before I added the syrup

After 15 minutes of beating the marshmallow frosting was done!

I am already loving this inexpensive and not-so-sweet frosting alternative. Next time I’ll try making IMBC or Italian meringue buttercream.

Feb 7

Marshmallow Frosting / Icing, first try

If I remember it right, marshmallow frosting is usually called “grandma’s frosting” because it reminds one so much about childhood and the usual cakes provided by grandma. Clients would oftentimes request for this type of frosting since “it’s not too sweet” compared to my favorite American buttercream but…but…I am so afraid to make it as it involves boiling and noting the right temperature. Celsius and Fahrenheit? nah-uh…so not cool.

But this morning I said that I’ll give it my best shot. So I gathered the ingredients and the equipment needed to cook the marshmallow frosting. Recipe adapted from Baked Bree.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

In a saucepan combine the sugar and water with a pinch of cream of tartar.
Make sure that when you are cooking the sugar that you do not stir the sugar mixture. It will cause the sugar to crystallize and you don’t want that to happen.
Boil the sugar until it reaches 245 degrees.
Meanwhile, put the egg whites and a pinch of salt in the bowl of a mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat until the egg whites are peaked.
Slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites. I mean slowly, this sugar mixture is 245 degrees, you do not want it to splash.
Beat the frosting on high speed for about 7 minutes (hence the name seven minute frosting) or until the sides of the bowl cool down.
The frosting will be light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla extract.

Using all these, I came up with a not-so-runny-but-it-doesn’t-hold-either type of marshmallow frosting:

Nevertheless, IT WAS SO YUMMY. So what happened? Here are some “what went wrong?” points that I will consider on my second try:

The syrup didn’t reach the right temperature yet. – guilty! I was so excited that when it began crystallizing on the sides, I poured it immediately on the meringue. BAD MOVE. “Patience is a virtue” applies to marshmallow frosting making.

Make the syrup in slow flame. Don’t be in the hurry, your patience will be rewarded, promise.

Didn’t follow the 7-minute whipping rule for Kitchen Aid mixers or 10-15-minute for the handheld – again I was so excited and was even licking the frosting-dipped spoon on the table. Damn, it was good.

So there, my fellow bakers advised me to whip it until I reach the right consistency.

Noting this, I’ll try making it again and will surely post about it here soon.

Feb 6

Popsicakes it is!

If you’ve been following my posts, you probably know that I just perfected my cake pops last week. It took me a while to actually know what has to be done to come up with the perfect cake pops. I swear, cupcakes are easier to make and handle. Who would have thought that these crazy little things are damn hard to make?

It took me not one, not two but six tries to finally come up with the Hello Kitty cake pops I have posted earlier. So not long after that, I made another batch as I have two sets of ready-made toppers lying on cabinet.

This time, the process was easier and less messy. So hooray for moi!

So you might be wondering why on earth you’re seeing POPSICAKES all over this post hehe… it’s because we all decided to call it POPSICAKES instead of the usual cake pops.

What do you think?

Feb 4

Cake Pops, finally!

I have always wanted to make cake pops ever since but after several tries I was at the verge of giving up. It was sticky, messy and really, really yucky. Told myself “ENOUGH!” as I have wasted a lot of ingredients already

But yesterday, I gave it another try – because I had to. There were a lot of cake scraps and I don’t know what to do with it.

Guess what? I finally did it!

Aren’t they cute?

These cake pops are cream cheese flavored, BTW. So it’s extra yummy!

For orders, you may email me here: inquiries@projecthappinessbyiris.info

Jan 31

Come, sin with me. triple chocolate cupcakes, anyone?

Whenever prospective clients ask me “what’s your best seller?” I would always say “Moist chocolate”, made from the finest and freshest ingredients, my moist chocolate cupcakes are fluffy and tastes sinfully good.

I usually frost them with American buttercream or ganache, fill them with fruit jam or eat ‘em as is but sometimes, when the call for chocolate is just too hard to resist, I usually frost them with chocolate buttercream and top them with white chocolate chips.

Sinfully good is an understatement.

Jan 27

Books, books and more books!

Baking and cook books are very expensive especially the former, that’s why dropping by every now and then in Book Sale ( a bookstore selling pre-loved books) has become a hobby.

Once you’re hooked with baking and cooking, you won’t stop learning. The need to learn about new recipes and tricks is there. So you turn into Google, Youtube and free PDF files for more juicy information. I do this too, very often especially when I’m short with cash. But there’s something about books that I couldn’t explain – I love smelling the pages and learning through actual books are way, way better than reading it online or watching people do it on video.

Here are the books that I have gathered so far, only a few but I’ll try to buy a few more in the coming months.

Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, Cookies and Bars, Sensational Cupcakes (NEW!)

The Best of Good Housekeeping, Planet Cake Cupcakes (New!)

So there, these books are must-reads as they are very easy to understand.

Jan 27

Why Project Happiness Bakehouse

Back in 2009 I planned to name my then “future bakehouse” into My Pink Kitchen or My Pink Bakehouse but my baking plans were set aside because I opened a store in multiply. Come 2010, a domain angel gave me http://projectappinessbyiris.info and from there I came up with Project Happiness Bakehouse!

Why? That I don’t know.

I have plans in changing names but others told me how nice sounding it is and that we really live up to it by bringing happiness to every occasion.

So that’s it. Maybe, just maybe, the mission of our bake house is to really give happiness to other people. My husband and I discussed our future plans – that if this business thrives, will put up our own Project Happiness – to be able to help less fortunate kids.

How’s that for Project Happiness?

Jan 26

Here comes the blog

I have been wanting to make a separate blog for my online bake house Project Happiness Bakehouse. The idea’s been there for ages yet I am not too lucky to have that much time to sit around and type about recipes, new designs and everything about baking.

Told myself that if I won’t start working on this one, no one will. It’s gonna be me, only me. As of this writing, I have just finished writing my new price list and boy it took me 3 whole months to work on that.

So what will you expect from this blog? Hmmm…our creations, of course – especially the blog-worthy ones, (believe me, we have cakes and cupcakes that I don’t even want to see LOL), my recipes (both original and tweaked ones) and some of my day-to-day blahs on baking.

I hope you will join me on this journey

Nov 25

Barbie Candy Land Cake

The client wanted a Barbie Candy Land cake and in fact ordered just the regular 8×3 cake. But as I was preparing the moist chocolate batter, I realized that I needed a two-layer cake to come up with what I have in mind!

I came up with this! An 8x8x1.5 base and 6×4 top. Not bad huh?

It was also my first time to use the FMM funky tappits so imagine my fear that everything will not turn out right! But guess what? I did it and the client loved the cake so much