CookEat Recipe
Chocolate Glaze and White Icing
Artusi’s cooked chocolate glaze, with complete white, pink and butter-icing variations.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Gather the ingredients: 50 g plain chocolate, finely grated; 100 g icing sugar; 3 tablespoons water.
Step 2
For the dark glaze, melt the grated chocolate gently with the water in a small saucepan. Add the sugar and simmer slowly, stirring often. Test a small drop on a cold plate: once fully cooled, it should pull into a short thread about 1 cm long between two spoons. Stop promptly at this stage; never test hot syrup with bare fingers.
Step 3
Set the saucepan in a bowl of cool water, keeping water out of the glaze, and stir continuously. As soon as the surface starts to look opaque and form a thin skin, spread over a completely cooled plain cake. Return the coated cake to a warm oven, about 160°C as a working guide, for only 2–3 minutes, watching closely for a smooth glossy set crust. Cool before serving. The cake is a separate serving base, not included in these glaze quantities.
Step 4
White icing: instead of the chocolate glaze, beat 1 pasteurized egg white with 130 g icing sugar, the strained juice of ¼ lemon and 1 tablespoon ready-to-drink rosolio liqueur. Beat until thick but still just flowing, spread over a cold cake and allow the surface to dry without baking. Keep the iced cake refrigerated if it is not served promptly and follow the cake’s own storage needs; pasteurized white is required for this uncooked icing.
Step 5
Pink icing: make the same white icing but omit the rosolio and add alchermes a little at a time, up to about 1 tablespoon, until the desired pink is reached. Adjust with a little more icing sugar if necessary. For either white or pink piped designs, add enough extra icing sugar to hold a line and pipe from a clean food-safe piping bag with a small tip or a baking-parchment cone. Allow to dry without heating. These liqueur icings are not alcohol-free.
Step 6
Cooked white glaze from the Neapolitan cake: boil 230 g sugar with 100 ml water until the bubbles become large and a fully cooled sample is tacky but does not draw a thread between two spoons. Remove from the heat, let begin to cool, add the strained juice of ¼ lemon and beat with a spoon until white. If it thickens too far, add water a teaspoon at a time to make a thick flowing coating and spread over the cold cake. For its complete almond finish, blanch and dry 100 g sweet almonds: split about one third along their natural seam and slice the remainder into thin slivers. Stir the slivers into the white glaze, coat the cake and stand the reserved halves upright on top.
Step 7
Soft chocolate coating from the brown-bread cake: melt 100 g plain chocolate with 30 g butter over low heat, stir in 30 g icing sugar and let cool from hot to a spreadable consistency before coating a cold cake.
Step 8
Coffee butter icing from the German cake: simmer 30 g ground coffee in about 80 ml water, strain very finely and measure only 2–3 tablespoons of strong clear coffee; adjust with a little boiling water only if needed to reach that small yield. Cool. Beat 100 g softened butter until very light, then beat in 100 g icing sugar. Add the cold coffee half a teaspoon at a time, stopping when the flavour is pronounced and the icing is smooth and pale coffee-coloured; surplus coffee need not be used. Spread evenly over a cold cake, smoothing with a spatula warmed in hot water and dried. For the source’s chocolate substitute use the complete soft chocolate coating above. Refrigerate butter-iced cakes and bring portions briefly to a spreadable serving temperature.
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