Sweet protein glaze (icing) for painting gingerbread cookies

To make sweet protein glaze (icing) for painting gingerbread cookies, the following ingredients will be useful:

How to prepare sweet protein icing (icing) for painting gingerbread cookies:

The finished glaze quickly dries in the air and sets into a crust, so we’ll immediately prepare little cornettes for it. For these purposes, I use acetate film (sold in confectionery shops and flower shops) - the film produces cornets with a fairly hard spout, which can later be cut off to create a hole of a suitable diameter. I don’t use icing attachments, I’ve never worked with them and I don’t understand how comfortable they are. But the question immediately arises: what to do if the hole gets clogged? You can run a knife along the acetate spout in the direction of the hole and squeeze out a little glaze along with clogged particles, but what can you do with the nozzle? In general, we will make cornets from film. For clarity, I will show the process on parchment (the film is transparent, it’s hard to see). So, we unwind a little film, fold it diagonally so that its two perpendicular sides coincide (you get a square folded diagonally).

We need half a square - this triangle, even and beautiful. Let's cut it off.

Now we fold it in such a way that the nose of the bag falls in the middle of the long side of the triangle.

This is the little cornet that comes out.

We fix the seams (internal and external) with tape. We make cornets from film, remember?

This is how they look finished. If different amounts of glaze are needed, then for convenience it is better to create cornets of different sizes.

Immediately we cut off the spouts of the bags - we pinch them off little by little (we’ll figure out the required diameter of the hole later, at the moment the main thing is not to cut off the excess) so that the air comes out when we spread the glaze. Otherwise, the glaze will not penetrate deep into the cornet and it will be difficult to tie. Now that the preparation is complete, you can start glazing. Wash the eggs, the whites of which we will use for glaze, with soda in warm water and carefully dry them. For the filling glaze (the most watery), weigh out 40 g of protein. Add citric acid on your fingertip. It is believed that acid makes the glaze shiny, the colors more colorful and the taste less cloying. I would say that the shine depends more on the grinding of the sweet powder, and the color depends on the properties of the dyes and the humidity in the room where the gingerbreads dry. I’m completely silent about the cloying quality - well, it’s all sugar, what can you do about it? But I still add a little acid, I don’t feel sorry, what if it’s a hidden ingredient?

Mix for a few seconds with a mixer so that the acid disperses and the protein becomes more homogeneous.

Then add sweet powder little by little, also quickly combining with a mixer.

I add powder in three or four doses. By the way, all numbers (I mean weight) are relevant only for this sweet powder. Of all the ones I tried (and there were quite a few of them; we have a very limited assortment on sale), this one worked, the others absolutely did not. It is important that the sweet powder is finely ground - that’s what powder is, not sand. You can rub it with your fingers to make sure that it is not sharp and nothing crunches. The starch in the composition is not terrible, at least it doesn’t bother me.

But if you have a different powder, try to navigate the glaze mixture. If you run a spoon over the surface of the glaze, grooves remain that close and align in a few seconds.

You can add one or two drops of aromatic essence to the finished glaze - whatever you like, to your own taste. After kneading, there are air bubbles in the glaze. To get them out, tap the container on your knee (you can do it on the table, but it will be noisy). And stir gently again. We will color the glaze right away. It’s perfect and it’s better to work with it immediately after production, without delaying it. After about three hours, the sugar will begin to melt and instead of a dense mass you will get a transparent syrup with grains. Well, not practically right away, but the icing will tend to do this, it will noticeably float and the process of painting gingerbread cookies will become even less enjoyable. For coloring, we will separate the required amount of glaze into the smallest container and add gel food coloring. I use AmeriColor.

The dyes are very concentrated, so it’s better not to drip them into the glaze, but to dip a skewer or toothpick into the dye and add that amount.

Mix quickly and thoroughly.

If you need the most intense color, wipe the skewer with a napkin and repeat the function.

To obtain the most complex color, add another dye.

I mixed a little lemon into the greenish one, and it came out apple.

Spread the glaze into the cornet.

And tighten it tightly with tape.

Literally paint the rest of the glaze in the desired colors in the same way. Remember that glaze dries quickly when exposed to air. Either we paint it very quickly, or we cover the glaze with cling film in contact so that it does not dry out. We prepare the contour glaze in literally the same way - the thickest one. Typically, you need less outline glaze than fill glaze. That’s why I have the smallest proportions of ingredients. The thickness of the contour glaze is like this: it stretches behind the spoon like a flexible “bridge”.

Icing (icing for cookies and gingerbread)

You've probably seen cookies, gingerbreads, or other confectionery products painted with glaze on the Internet or at Christmas markets that looked practically like works of art. icing or, in other words, sweet glaze is used as such glaze Now I will tell you what it is and how to quickly and deftly prepare it.

Icing (English: “Royal icing”, translated as “royal icing”) is a protein paste for decorating desserts and various baked goods. The mass can be snow-white or colored when food coloring is added to it. I will make icing that will be used as a glaze for gingerbread cookies and gingerbread .

Ingredients

egg white 1 pc.
sweet powder 200 g
lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon

To make icing, we need only two main ingredients - egg white and sweet powder.

From the 1st egg of group C0 comes a fairly large amount of icing, which is enough for two 10-piece gingerbread cookies.

Manufacturing

We prepare all the necessary ingredients. Wash the egg thoroughly with soap. We carefully separate the egg white from the yolk.

Add sifted sweet powder to the protein. It is imperative to sift; there may be sugar crystals in the powder that need to be removed. Otherwise, in the future they may interfere little with work, clogging the cut corner of the pastry bag.

Mix with a mixer or blender with a whisk attachment at a leisurely speed for 2 minutes. The glaze will begin to turn white evenly, this is due to protein oxidation. Next, add half a teaspoon of lemon juice, which will make the icing shine and shimmer a little in the light, and beat again for 3 minutes. The sugar-protein mixture will become a thick, homogeneous, snow-white mass.

In fact, the icing is almost ready.
The glaze dries quickly, so if you are not going to work with it for the next few minutes, it is better to cover it with cling film or a lid. Next, if you need icing of different colors, then put the icing in different containers and add food coloring of a color that suits us. I use Americolor gel dye. The quantity is determined by the intensity of the color you want to achieve. But it is worth considering that when drying, the glaze darkens a little and the color becomes richer.

Mix. Look how wonderful it is!

And that's not all!
Typically, glaze is divided into 3 types: - thick - for gluing parts for a gingerbread house, drawing small details and inscriptions;
- medium thickness - for the contours of drawings;
- watery - for filling inside contours.

We need to decide what kind of sketch will be on our gingerbread cookies, this is necessary to understand how much icing of each type will be useful to us.

Our thick icing is ready. The mixture must be thick enough: the mass stays on the spoon and does not fall even when the spoon is turned on its side.

To obtain medium-thick icing, add a little water to the initial mass and mix. It’s better to add drop by drop so as not to overdo it. If the mass is still thick, then repeat the process. The mixture comes out medium thick: the mass on the spoon slowly slides down when turned.

To obtain a watery icing, add a little more water to the initial mass and mix. If the mass is still thick, then repeat the process. The mixture comes out a little thicker than condensed milk. The mixture drips off the spoon when turned on its side. We do the filling like this: first, use thick icing to draw a line along the perimeter of the future filling, and then fill the inside with watery icing.

We put our mixture into pastry bags. You can use ordinary thick bags or even zip bags if you don’t have pastry bags. Or a pastry syringe.

We cut off the edge and start drawing. The main thing is not to be afraid of this matter. Gingerbread cookies will still turn out to be a decoration for any tea party. I don’t have a lot of artistic talent, but I still drew it well, it seems to me. So, you can apply the glaze in any way you like, as indicated by the heart. In general, there are no restrictions. Children simply love this kind of creativity; creating it with them is just the thing. The most common option is to create a solid fill with one color. First, we make a contour with thick icing, which we fill with watery icing. A toothpick will help to carefully distribute everything inside and smooth it out.

Two-color mitten. From the photo, I think everything is clear: first we draw the outline, fill it, then draw snow-white “polka dots” on the reddish one and draw it through the center of the circle with a toothpick. Finishing touch: sprinkle sugar on the base of the mitten.

{Instructions} and 17 secrets for working with icing

Icing is a protein-sugar mixture.

From time to time, for greater plasticity, glucose syrup or a little glycerin is added to the mass, but the addition of glycerin can make the mass very sticky, which will make it more difficult to separate it from the polyethylene backing.

When depositing the mass specifically onto the surface of the gingerbread being decorated, i.e. when the next detachment of the icing lace is not expected, the addition of glycerin can significantly facilitate the work.

Ingredients:

Manufacturing:

Procedure for working with icing:

1) Draw future patterns on paper or print ready-made templates. It is very convenient to use children's coloring books as templates.

2) Place a hand-drawn cardboard template under plastic film or place it in a plastic “file” (a narrow transparent bag for documents).

Here the property of cellophane is used that it does not stick to anything. Products can stick “tightly” to tracing paper, parchment or wax paper, especially if the icing mass is very watery.

3) Freshly prepared protein rice mixture (icing) is placed in a cornet with a suitable attachment or in a plastic bag with a cut corner (for example, in a document file).

The mass should be prepared each time in an amount suitable for the current work. Storing the mass can cause unnecessary changes in its plasticity, which will have to be corrected by adding either sweet powder or a few drops of water and painstaking rubbing again.

The icing mass does not have to be very watery - so that it does not spread out and lose its shape during jigging, and not very thick - so that it is squeezed out of the root without any extra effort and does not tear during jigging.

If you prepare the thickest icing mixture, you can use it to sculpt decorations with your hands, like plasticine. You should not sculpt very thick decorations, because... they will take too long to dry out.

4) Squeeze out the icing onto the plastic film according to the pattern placed underneath it. If you have sufficient artistic abilities, it is possible to do without templates, freely drawing in bulk according to your own imagination.

5) The film with a deposited pattern (or a topped confectionery product) is left to dry at room temperature (but not higher than +40 degrees C) for 1-2-3 days until the mass dries completely.

6) The dried icing decorations are carefully removed from the backing.

Secrets of icing

1) Sweet powder must be as fine as possible. It is better to sift it through a fine sieve.

2) Products dry for at least 12 hours, longer for larger products.

3) In the refrigerator and simply with high humidity, products made from icing break very easily, so it is better not to put the cake topped with them in the refrigerator.

4) The figures are fragile, it is better to create them with supplies.

5) Store dried figures in boxes or plastic containers in a dry place

6) The whites must be beaten with a fork or whisk, but NOT with a mixer.

7) It is better to add lemon juice (or citric acid) at the end of whipping, then the shapes will be the least fragile.

You may need a little more than a glass of sweet powder for 1 protein (it all depends on the size of the protein)

9) You can dry the figures on waxed or parchment paper or cellophane. It is more convenient to work with transparent film; you can take transparent file folders for documents.

10) When tinting with watery dye, add more sweet powder.

11) The drawing mass can be applied from a pastry bag with a narrow nozzle or from a cornet.

12) Icing can be drawn specifically on the cake. Only the cake coating does not have to be wet; whipped cream, sour cream, jelly and jam are not suitable.

13) If you need to give the product any shape, then make some kind of device that will correspond to the desired shape

14) When working with icing, unused mass and nozzle left idle for a while must be covered with a moistened napkin to prevent it from drying out.

15) For shine, add 1 teaspoon of refined vegetable oil (per glass of powdered sugar)

16) At the end of kneading, you need to adjust the thickness of the glaze by adding a little water or sweet powder, depending on how you are going to use the glaze. It must be harder to cover surfaces, firstly corners, and more flexible in order to make inscriptions or draw patterns with it through the cornet.

Secrets of icing for gingerbread

This is an invaluable post if you are working with gingerbread ice cream! Ira Lyamina, founder of the Ilbakery brand, manufacturer of IL-icing, answered all possible questions about gingerbread icing. And there are a lot of questions, you understand.

About drying glaze on gingerbread cookies

– Why does the glaze on gingerbread take a long time to dry?

“Either it wasn’t beaten at all, or not very much.”

– What is necessary for the glaze to shine?

– First of all, don’t over-beat the icing. You can also dry the glaze in the oven at 50C with the door ajar. Or use the gloss additive.

– Why can the icing come off the gingerbread like a shell?

– The thing is that both the icing and the gingerbread are very, very dry, and there is no adhesion between the gingerbread and the icing.

About the disadvantages of glaze (icing on gingerbread)

– Why might the icing on a gingerbread be porous, not smooth, not shiny?

– It is very important not to add a huge amount of water to the glaze for pouring, not to over-beat the icing and also let the glaze on the gingerbread dry thoroughly without covering it with anything.

– Why, when painting with brushes, does the glaze on the gingerbread become loose and begin to melt?

- Firstly, this is incorrectly mixed icing - you over-beat it. Secondly, you use a lot of water on the brush.

– Why can whitish marble spots appear on the surface of the icing?

– In fact, this does not depend on the properties of the icing and powder. It just depends on the difference in humidity. Even if you just turned on the kettle in the kitchen, this can affect the glaze.

– Why do microcracks and creases in the glaze appear on gingerbread cookies?

- This is due to mechanical action. Either you moved the gingerbread, but the glaze was not yet dry, or you moved it, or you took the tray, but it doesn’t move much - so a crack appeared. Second point - when you have a huge amount of icing on the gingerbread, the top layer begins to dry out, but the bottom layer is not yet dry. The crust that has formed at the top begins to diverge under the influence of uncured icing.

– What to do if bubbles appear in the icing?

– First you need to cover the container with a wet towel and let the icing sit for a little while. This way the bubbles will come out. You can also tap the container on the table.

About coloring icing

– How to color the icing?

– We recommend coloring the icing with water-soluble dyes, either gel or dry. A very important point: if you want to create a rather colorful glaze, we recommend using dry water-soluble dyes, so that they do not dilute the structure of the icing.

– What should you do if there is color inhomogeneity in a bag of icing?

– You need to knead it well and continue working.

– Why might there be splashes of color in the icing?

-Either a small but dense piece of gel dye got into it, or you did not mix the dry dye well, or you are using low-quality water.

– Why can one color on the glaze flow into another?

– This phenomenon is called color migration. It arises mainly from under-beaten icing, as well as from a huge amount of dye.

About the icing mixture

– Why do failures occur on small parts?

– This is an incorrectly selected mixture. You must understand: if the part is small, the icing mixture must be thicker. Dips can also appear from bubbles in the glaze.

– If you change the proportions given on the label, will something terrible happen?

– Nothing terrible will happen if the error is almost 5 g. You can create any mixtures from our icing that are necessary specifically for you.

– Why can the icing mixture become heterogeneous or liquefy?

– This can happen from very over-beaten icing. This can also happen when the icing bag sits for a long time. To do this, you just need to knead the bag and continue working.

– Why might the icing mixture be heterogeneous?

– This can happen if you added cool water, or did not infuse the mixture before whipping. Also from the weathered crust - it just got into the icing.

About weathering the glaze

– What can be done to prevent the base mixture from weathering?

– You need to cover the container with a damp towel, or close the lid tightly.

– What to do if the base mixture has weathered?

– You can try to revive her with warm water. To do this, pour a small amount of warm water onto the crust, let stand for 5 minutes and drain it.