On Oct 31, 2005, at 20:07, Martha Krieg wrote:
Yes, our icing sugar has cornstarch in it too - that's what gives it that silky feel when you rub it between your fingers, and what makes it thicken up instead of just turning to syrup when you add milk or water to it for a glaze.
Hah! That explains everything! :) I'm not a fanatic of sweet things in general, but I do get an urge about twice a year and almost all of my American famiy (with the exception of the second-in-line stepchild) adores sweets, so I've learnt to bake and do, every once in a while. And I could never figure out what it was about American icing that I disliked even more than I did about the Polish icing...
Our icing is made with plain sugar - melted. It's melted and cooked "to a degree" (there are 3 degrees, the 3rd being the thickest) of syrup, then thinned out with flavourings (and water, if necessary) before being spread over the cake; the thickness comes not from extra ingreients, but from extra time you spend sweating over the stove and stirring the xyz-d stuff... So it's crispy when it dries after coming out of the oven, not at all like the soft American icing. It's also almost never white, the way American icing is; it's more like the underside of creme caramel and creme brulee (both favourites)...
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
