Frost A Cake

Cake with frosting. It's a part of western culture for most celebratory events, especially those in childhood. But, have you ever tried to frost a cake without lessons? It probably turned out as hideous as my first cake did. This cake was dome shaped, there were cake crumbs in the icing, lumpy patches, thin patches, and butter knife marks everywhere.


Here's how to frost a layer cake and get a smooth even coating of frosting that rivals the most professionally applied fondant.

The Basics:

Tools & Ingredients:

Buttercream icing (recipe below)

Cake Spatula (from most grocery or home goods stores)

Cardboard cut to the size of your cake

High quality paper smooth towel (Viva is smooth enough)

• Never frost a warm cake. Frosting is made mainly of fat, and fat melts. You don't want your icing sliding off the cake! 
• Use a buttercream icing for this method. It is the standard frosting used on most cakes and the easiest to work with.  You can add food coloring and flavor extracts if you like; this one is easy to work with and only uses 4 ingredients. (recipe here:  http://www.thelittledelightsinlife.com/2012/04/tutorial-tuesday-my-delicious.html)
• Use 2 or more cakes to make a layer cake. With a bread knife, whittle away a little of the tops if they are very rounded or un-level so they will sit flat atop one another. Hold the knife as level as you can as you cut off the raised bits.  Place the first cake flat side down on a cake base of some kind, like your cardboard circle. Then place the second cake round side *down* so your cake top is nice and flat; check for levelness and trim a bit from the round sides of the cake layers if they don't lay evenly. If you were careful in cutting your tops flat, you will have very little adjusting to do and you can unstack the layers and add icing to the bottom layer to "glue" them together; replace the top layer. Voila, you now have a perfect cake base. 

Layer one: Crumb coat

Put a large glob of icing on the top of the cake and spread it across the top using a zig-zag motion with the cake spatula, changing directions to get it to stick well. Once the top is very thinly coated, you can spread the excess down the sides of the cake being sure to smoosh the icing into the gap between cake layers. This layer will be messy looking and thin, but that's ok. It is supposed to glue down all of the loose crumbs, so your top layer is clean and tidy. When you're done, place the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes so it gets very cold, but not frozen solid. This will make that crumb coat nice and firm. Wash off your spatula and throw away any excess icing that has crumbs in it. 

Layer 2: Top coat

Once again, put a big glob of icing on the top of your cake and start spreading it evenly across the surface with your zig-zag motion. Be careful this time to get it more even, and don't leave any thin spots. Do the sides the same way, adding globs of icing to them as needed. Level out your spatula ridges as best you can.

Finishing:

Use a very smooth pliable sheet of paper towel (Viva, for example) not the cheap bumpy kind. Take the towel and drape it over the top of your frosted cake and gently smooth it with your hand. This will knock down all those spatula marks and give you a perfect even layer of frosting that looks just like fondant. Pick up the towel (it won't stick) and look to see if there are still any high spots and rub them down again. Then do this to the sides.

Video: How to frost a cake with a paper towel

Cook Fish

The Basics:

• Fresh fish tastes and smells less "fishy" than older fish. Get it as fresh out of the water as you can.
• If not fresh, flash frozen is your next best bet. It is frozen before it can "go fishy".
• Thaw frozen fish fully before cooking or it will cook very unevenly. 
• Oily fish smells and tastes stronger than white fish.
• If you hate "fishiness", aim for the milder species and get it skinless.

• Salmon, Tuna, Trout, Herring and Sardines are good examples of oily strongly flavored fish.
• Mackerel, Talapia, Catfish, Pollock, Snapper, and Flounder are moderately flavored fish.
• Halibut and Cod are the most mildly flavored fish.

Cook all fish hot and fast:

• It cooks much faster than land animal meats, so be ready when you introduce it to the heat.
• Heat your oiled skillet or pan to medium-high: higher than you would use for steak or chicken.
• Breaded and fried fish pieces usually cook in under 1 minute, so don't walk away! 
• Pan cooked fish fillets are typically ready to flip over after 1-2 minutes, and will not stick if your heat is high enough to caramelize the proteins. If it doesn't release from the pan easily, turn the heat up a little and leave it alone; wait for the proteins to finish!
• If baking your fish, enclose it. Either make a packet with aluminum foil around the fish fillets, or bake in a covered dish. The hot oven will dry it out otherwise.
• BBQ methods also need to be very hot, and don't forget to oil the rack. Don't even think about trying to jam a spatula under the fillet until the fish lifts up easily, if will come up whole and gorgeous when it's ready! 

Flavors to add: 

Every culture has its own idea of what goes with fish, so don't let the old fashioned cook books limit your imagination. Here are a list of things that go well with fish that I have tried personally:
Garlic, onion, vinegar, citrus juice and slices, lemongrass, bell peppers, fresh hot peppers, smoked chiles, BBQ sauce, Tamarind sauce, soy sauce, green enchilada sauce, tomatillo, cumin, safron, basil, sage, rosemary, taragon, and of course salt and pepper.  Basically it's a list of whatever you have in the cupboard. Try to stick to one or two flavors at once if you're not confident about the mix.

Boil an Egg

It seems like a simple thing, but it's amazing how badly these little gems can turn out if you don't understand how to cook them. 

The Basics:

• Fresher eggs will have centered yolks when boiled, and older eggs will be off-center. If you're making deviled eggs, use fresh ones.
• Start with the raw eggs in the pan of cold water, and let the heat warm the eggs along with the water. 
• If you dump cold eggs into boiling water, they will crack.
• Boiling for too long creates green yolks and an "off smell" of sulfur. 
• If you let the eggs sit in hot water, off the heat source, they will continue to cook. This is useful! 

Hard Boiled (Firm yolks with no green color):

Method

1. Put your fresh eggs in a pan and fill to cover the eggs plus an inch or two of extra water.
2. Place the pan on high heat and allow it to boil.
3. Once it starts boiling (rolling boil, not tiny bubbles), wait 1 minute, cover the pan,  then turn off the heat source.
4. Allow the eggs to sit in the hot water for 12 minutes. You can let them sit a little longer without much worry, but after 15 minutes you risk turning the yolks green. 
5. Remove the eggs from the hot water and place them into a bowl of very cold tap water to halt the cooking process.  If the water gets warm, dump it out and refill with more cold water. 

Soft boiled (runny yolks):

Method

1. Place the eggs in the smallest pan available and only add enough cold water to cover them. Put the lid on the pan and place over the highest heat possible.
2. When the water comes to the boil, remove the pan from the heat and wait for 6 minutes. Leave the pan lid on.
3. After the time has elapsed, remove the lid and carefully remove each egg. Cut the top of each egg before serving in egg cups.

*Soft boiled method courtesy of Heston Blumenthal, chef and food scientist.