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What is Lemon Icing?
Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen
Lemon icing can be the perfect accompaniment to cakes of various flavors. Some people get a little confused over the differences in the terms icing and frosting. Usually these terms are interchangeable, though some people mean frosting to contain more ingredients, especially butter and possibly eggs.
The simplest lemon icing recipes are easy to make. They combine lemon juice and confectioners sugar or powdered sugar. Some countries call confectioners sugar icing sugar. It can help to sift the sugar if it has any lumps, which are hard to get out once liquids and sugar are combined. Otherwise, these recipes simply call for combining these two ingredients.
Plenty of alternate recipes for lemon frosting or icing exist. There are quick frosting variants, which combine lemon juice, softened butter and powdered sugar. Alternately, fairly complicated lemon icing recipes require melting sugar, adding eggs and combining additions of lemon and cream. It’s easy to find a huge number of recipes online and plenty of cookbooks have quick icing recipes and more complex ones.
Once a person has found the ideal lemon icing recipe, it’s a good idea to consider what types of cakes this icing can top. Simple white or yellow cakes are excellent with lemony frosting on top, but there’s no need to stick to vanilla and lemon flavors only. Quick lemon icing is delicious on blueberry cake, and can top most other cakes made with fruit. Thin lemon glazes are terrific on many recipes for sweet breads like stollen or gingerbread. Cakes or breads that contain lemon may have these flavors enhanced with the use of lemon icing.
Another ideal base for lemon icing is cupcakes of various flavors. Some people find they want to make cupcakes slightly more decorative. With quick lemon frosting recipes, cooks can add a drop of red food coloring to create pink lemonade icing. Consider separating the cupcakes into two groups and frosting one set with pink and one set with yellow icing. This is pleasing contrast, perfect for a summer party.
Most lemon icing recipes can be quickly changed to orange icing. Use slightly less sugar and depending on orange size, you might not want to add the entire juice of one orange. The typically sized orange will have more juice than one lemon. For citrus icings that are a little sweeter than lemon, orange icing may be the perfect choice.
Tricia Christensen
Tricia has a Literature degree from Sonoma State University and has been a frequent WiseGEEK contributor for many years. She is especially passionate about reading and writing, although her other interests include medicine, art, film, history, politics, ethics, and religion. Tricia lives in Northern California and is currently working on her first novel.
Learn more...
Tricia Christensen
Tricia has a Literature degree from Sonoma State University and has been a frequent WiseGEEK contributor for many years. She is especially passionate about reading and writing, although her other interests include medicine, art, film, history, politics, ethics, and religion. Tricia lives in Northern California and is currently working on her first novel.
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![Lemon juice combined with sugar is a simple form of lemon icing.]()
By: Photographee.euLemon juice combined with sugar is a simple form of lemon icing.
Discussion Comments
A cooked buttercream icing is not as easy as the uncooked, but it does deliver a product that is almost like divinity candy. You start with a basic seven-minute frosting recipe and add lemon juice, grated lemon zest and a couple of drops of food coloring.
If you live in a warm, humid climate, any kind of cooked frosting is best attempted when it's cold and dry outside. The frosting may not come set like it's supposed to.
A lemon cream cheese icing is made a lot like an uncooked buttercream, but obviously, with cream cheese in addition to butter. That's a rich frosting that goes well with a very simple cake.
Any kind of fruit juice mixed with just powdered sugar is technically a glaze. A lemon icing is more of a frosting.
An uncooked buttercream lemon icing is probably the easiest one to make. You cream one stick of butter and a box of powdered sugar together, then add about two or three tablespoons of milk, lemon juice and grated lemon zest, to taste. Mix until it's spreading consistency, adding more sugar or milk to accomplish this.
To add a lemon color, just a couple of drops of yellow food coloring will do the job. Don't add too much coloring, or the frosting will have a fake neon color. You want a pale pastel, not a bright schoolbus yellow.
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