HOW TO GLAZE A CAKE

I received an email from Nan asking, "I am making a lemon cake. Most of them call for a glaze. What type of frosting would you suggest for a lemon cake? Thanks, Nan.

I immediately forwarded this email to my friend Chef Jenni Field, a graduate of Orlando Culinary Academy - Le Cordon Bleu and a professional pastry chef with her own web site called Pastry Chef Online. She is a wealth of culinary knowledge especially when it comes to baking and pastry. Here is how she asked Nan’s question:

Simple Glaze

Depending upon the texture of your lemon cake, a glaze or a frosting could be called for. If you are making a dense lemon cake, like a lemon pound cake, I recommend a lemon glaze. A simple way of making a lemon glaze is to mix fresh lemon juice with powdered sugar until it has a "drizzling" consistency. Then, drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake.

If you’d like the glaze to soak into the cake, glaze the cake while it is still very warm. The glaze will thin and run, so you will have to "baste" the cake several times with the drippings. The end result will be a lovely, moist cake with a deep lemon flavor and a shiny, slightly sticky outside. Sift some powdered sugar over the cake right before cutting and serving for a pretty look.

Simple Lemon Glaze

Another option for a lemon glaze would be to make a simple lemon syrup. Bring the zest of two lemons, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1 cup water to a boil. Cool to room temperature, and strain out the lemon zest. Taste the syrup. You can add a touch of fresh lemon juice or a bit of lemon extract if you’d like it more lemony. Thoroughly brush the cake with this syrup while it is still very warm, but after you have taken it out of the pan.

Lemon Frosting

If you are making a lemon cake with a lighter crumb, more like a standard yellow or white cake, you can use a lemon frosting. Lemon cream cheese frosting might be nice–the slight tang of the cream cheese would marry nicely with the fresh lemon flavor of the cake. Cream 4 oz. each of softened unsalted butter and softened cream cheese until light and fluffy. Slowly add 1 pound of sifted confectioner’s sugar and cream very well. Beat in a pinch of salt, the zest of 1 lemon and a couple of tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (enough to give it a good spreading consistency).

Whatever option you choose, and whatever kind of lemon cake you made, I’m sure it will be very tasty.

What is Pectin?

For those of you who don’t jar your own jellies and jams, you may be unfamiliar with pectin. It is a polysaccaride that is found naturally in fruits like berries and when combined with sugar and heated up becomes a thickening agent. Before pectin, you would have to continuously reduce jam over heat to get it to the right consistency.

Found in most supermarkets but with a limited shelf life, you want to use a new box each year. I have found an excellent source describing just about everything you want to know about pectin here.

What About Sugar Free Pectin?
I received an email from Robert N. asking about the availability of “No Sugar Pectin” for preparing raspberry jam. I immediately contacted Chef Jennie Field, a graduate of Orlando Culinary Academy, Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School in Florida. Here are Robert’s question and the Chef’s response:

Hi RG -    Kathy M. suggested I ask you  to help in our quest for NO-SUGAR PECTIN. We grow lots and lots of raspberries and the family loves the jam my wife makes, but prefers it with no-sugar pectin.  We just have not been able to find it.  Any suggestions?

Chef Field’s Response:

Most pectin needs a high sugar to gel–there are special low-sugar and no-sugar kinds you can get to make jams and jellies with a lower sugar content.  Here’s a link to purchase no-sugar pectin:

Apparently, you can use this type of pectin to make a Polaner All-Fruit type of jam:  fruit, some fruit juice, and maybe some sugar along with the no sugar pectin.

In my experience, raspberries have a pretty high pectin content.  I used to make a great raspberry jam at the restaurant with just IQF raspberries, lemon juice, a bit of salt, and sugar.

Not sure how “low-sugar” they want their jam to be, but my ratio was 1 to .9 fruit to sugar–gelled just fine, as long as I reduced it to the right consistency on the burner.

I recently received this email from a visitor asking,

“if a recipe calls for four ounces of something, how do you know if they mean four ounces on the food scale, or in the measuring cup? What’s the difference between dry measuring cups and liquid measuring cups, why would you need different cups, wouldn’t they measure the same amount? This may sound stupid, but not to me. Thanks for your time. ”

I asked my friend Chef Jennifer Field, a graduate of Orlando Culinary Academy, Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School, who offered this response,

“This is a very good question; many people don’t stop to consider that there is a difference at all between liquid and dry measures, so good for you! My general rule of thumb is if the recipe calls for 4 ounces of a liquid, use a liquid measuring cup. If the recipe calls for 4 ounces of a dry ingredient, use your scale. Now to your other individual questions:

What’s the difference between dry measuring cups and liquid measuring cups?

Dry measuring cups are meant to be filled right up to the top and then leveled off with a straight edge of some sort. Liquid measuring cups generally have a pour spout and are made to be filled to the gradations on the side of the cup (1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 6 oz, etc.) rather than being filled right up to the top.

Why would you need different cups?

Wouldn’t they measure the same amount? Well, for one, measuring a liquid by pouring right to the tippy top of the measuring cup is just asking for spilling and mess. For another, it’s really hard to level a dry ingredient (think flour or oatmeal) if it’s not right up to the top of the measuring cup.

Also, for liquids, the mantra “a pint is a pound the world around,” basically holds true within a couple of wee fractions of an ounce either way. This means that 1 pint of liquid (16 ounces) = 2 cups of liquid, whether that liquid be milk, water, or oil.

With dry measures, pesky settling must be taken into account. I wasn’t a physics major, but it’s a matter of mass versus weight: depending on how you use your dry measures (do you scoop up a cup of flour or spoon it into the cup? Do you sift first? Do you pack your flour down?) a cup of flour can vary in weight from about 3.5 ounces to about 5 ounces. That’s a lot of variation.

My advice is to measure dry ingredients with a dry measure once and weigh the outcome. Use it in your recipe and see if you like the way it turns out. If so, write down the weight of that particular ingredient and use the weight every time that particular ingredient is called for.

For example, the way I fill a one cup measure, all purpose flour weighs 4 ounces. I like how this works in my recipes, so I will use 8 oz. of all purpose flour for 2 cups in a recipe, or 3 ounces of all purpose flour for 3/4 cups in a recipe.”

Hope this helps, and thanks for asking such great questions. I bet this will help other folks with the same questions.