Tutorial: 1M Swirl

The Art.
    This is the first in a series of cake decorating tutorials that I'm very excited about. Each time I create a post that uses a standard decorating technique, I will post how-to directions for it a few days before. I think it's important to demonstrate the piping techniques that are used to decorate cakes, cupcakes, and cookies in a step-by-step format, especially for all my readers who are new to decorating.

   The classic 1M swirl is a must-have technique in a cupcake decorator's arsenal.  It is so quick and easy, but still elegant. The term "1M" refers to the decorating tip size that is required. I use a Wilton 1M tip, which can be found at Hobby Lobby or at Wilton's website. This tip can be used for many other techniques, like making large drop flowers, stars, or cake borders.  Definitely worth the $2 investment. This tip can also be used to decorate with a wide range of icings, from chocolate ganache, to whipped cream, to buttercream.

The Science.

    A very important factor for piping beautiful decorations is making sure your icing is the right consistency. When icing is concerned, temperature and consistency go hand in hand. Today, I am demonstrating the 1M swirl with buttercream icing, which is my staple. My recipe uses a mixture of butter and shortening, which simultaneously gives it a nice buttery flavor and a wider temperature range in which it can be used to decorate. All-butter recipes are more difficult to decorate with and transport than those made with shortening. Butter is not a pure fat, but rather an emulsion of oil and water held together by milk protein emulsifiers. It is a hard solid at temperatures below 60^oF because of its high saturated fat content, so cool all-butter buttercream cannot be piped. However, butter also has a low melting temperature of only 90^oF, which means that it will make icing become oily and soft if left at room temperature for a while [1]. Shortening, on the other hand, is full of hydrogenated fats and is fairly soft at cold temperatures, yet doesn't melt until about 117^oF [2]. These qualities make it an ideal fat for decorating icing, but not so great on the flavor front. By blending together butter and shortening in buttercream, you can achieve the best of both worlds and have buttery flavor and temperature tolerance.

The Recipe.

Fluffy Buttercream
1 cup salted butter, room temperature
1 cup vegetable shortening
5-7 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

    In large bowl, beat together butter and shortening on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Add sugar until icing makes stiff, jagged peaks. Beat in vanilla. If icing tastes too sugary or grainy, add a couple tablespoons of milk. Use immediately or store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. Makes enough icing for one 9" round cake or 24 cupcakes.

1M Swirl Technique:
   Place a 1M decorating tip in a piping bag and fill with icing, twisting the top shut. Beginning at the outer edge, anchor the frosting on the cupcake by holding the tip at the surface and applying pressure to the bag. Once anchored, raise the tip slightly above the surface.
Pipe around the periphery with constant pressure until you reach your starting point. Continue to pipe, slightly overlapping your first round of icing. Keep on going around until you reach the center of the cupcake. When you come to the point where you want your swirl to end, stop pressure on the piping bag, push the tip down slightly to anchor the end of the swirl, then pull up to release. Please note that I am left-handed, so all you righties might want to mirror what I do in the photos.









1. American Baking Essentials Course 201. "Butter, Shortening, and Oils: The Fats We Bake With." The Prepared Pantry, 2005.
2. O Chef, "Turning the Heat up on Crisco (and Lard)." http://www.ochef.com/1157.htm

Summer Rhubarb Cake

The Art.
    My grandmother has always been protective of her rhubarb plants, to put it mildly. I have never been able to figure this out, since you can't kill the stuff. You can try and corral it into one part of your garden and not only will it take over completely, it will grow under cement foundations and show up in your neighbor's yard on the other side. Nevertheless, my aunt would have to sneak into Grandma's garden at the break of dawn on summer mornings if she wanted to snag a few stalks for her famous rhubarb cake. When the family would visit for dinner that evening, my aunt would serve squares of warm rhubarb cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream dribbling over the edges. Grandma would eye her plate suspiciously until we all felt sufficiently uncomfortable, then inquire where my aunt got the rhubarb. The grocery store, Grandma, the grocery store. We'd all smirk down at our plates while we tucked into our favorite summer dessert.
    To be honest, the real beauty of my aunt's rhubarb cake is that you virtually can't mess it up. I've dressed the recipe up a bit over time, but you can throw everything in a bowl and stir it with a fork and it will turn out fine. In fact, my aunt would add a tablespoon of vinegar to a cup of milk and use that instead of buttermilk in a pinch. This is a homey, simple cake that goes hand-in-hand with the heartiness of the rhubarb plant.

Structure of Oxalic Acid

The Science.
    However, there is a darkness that lingers within this plant. Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum L.) is sour and sinister. Its tissues harbor oxalic acid, a dicarboxylic acid that is a weak poison. While this compound is found in many foods like sugar beets and spinach, the leaves of the rhubarb plant contain up to 20 times more oxalic acid than spinach leaves, and should not be eaten. Conversely, the rhubarb stalks have very little oxalic acid and are considered benign. The roots of the rhubarb plant have also been used in Chinese medicine since the 16th century [1]. But today, we will enjoy its tart flesh in a tasty cake to celebrate heartiness and surviving against the odds!

The Recipe.

Cake:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup butter
1 large egg
1 cup low fat buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cup chopped rhubarb

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
3 tablespoons melted butter

    Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar on medium speed. Add egg and vanilla, beat until combined. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk while beating on medium speed until just combined.

Fold in rhubarb, pour into greased 9X13 pan. In a small bowl, mix topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over batter.

 Bake at 350^oF for 45min. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. And don't tell Grandma.

1. Donald G. Barceloux, Rhubarb and Oxalosis (Rheum Species). Disease-a-Month, Volume 55, Issue 6, June 2009, Pages 403-411.

Lemon polka dot sugar cookies

The Art.
    I was designing my blog banner the other day, and found this beautiful yellow polka dot background. It is so simple and cheerful, an embodiment of what I want my blog to be. However, I didn't have a photo of baked goods that would match the lemon yellow of the banner. One of my "delightful eccentricities" is that I like things to match. So, I decided to make iced sugar cookies with a yellow polka dot pattern. Lemon flavor is so wonderfully summery as well, I decided I couldn't go wrong! For presentation, I tied the cookies up with yellow and white daisy trim I found in my sewing box.

The Science.
    When I was a child, my grandmother's friends taught me to make royal icing by beating together egg whites and powdered sugar. More recently, royal icing recipes use meringue powder instead of egg whites, and I assume this is because people are worried about bacterial contamination in their eggs. I hypothesized that adding lemon juice to the egg whites and beating them together would lower the acidity and kill any bacterium present. I performed a rough calculation. The average egg white has a volume of 2 tablespoons, and a medium lemon has 3 tablespoons of juice. My royal icing recipe calls for two egg whites and and the juice of one lemon, so the ratio of egg white to lemon is 4:3. The pH of an egg white can increase over time, but is approximately 7.5, while lemon juice has a pH of 2 [1]. Thus, the approximate acidity of my egg/lemon mixture would be pH 6. Not very acidic, is it? Additionally, a group in Liverpool did a study a few years ago and ascertained that a pH below 2.5 is required to kill E. coli [2]. So, my lemon juice will not kill bacterium in my egg whites. There is really no need for concern, however, since pasteurized eggs are available in the U.S., and also because the sugar content in royal icing is so high.

The Recipe.

Sugar cookies:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup salted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest from one lemon (optional)

    In a small bowl, combine flour and salt. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl on medium-high until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg, vanilla, and lemon zest. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Cover and chill dough at least one hour.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. To roll out the cookie dough, I prefer to place it between two pieces of waxed paper rather than flour my surfaces, so I don't get flour everywhere and make my cookies grainy.

Roll out dough with rolling pin until it is 1/4" thick. Cut out as many cookies as possible from dough with cookie cutters. I used fluted square cookie cutters, to set off the polka dot pattern.

Gather scraps and re-roll, cutting out more cookies. Transfer cookies to 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging cookies about 1 inch apart. Bake cookies until edges are golden, 10 to 12 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely [3]. 

Royal Icing:

2 large egg whites

3 tablespoons juice from one lemon

3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

    Beat together egg whites and lemon in large bowl at medium speed until slightly foamy. Gradually beat in sugar on low speed until stiff peaks form. This is your "outlining" icing. Once done outlining your cookies, thin this icing with a few tablespoons of water to make "flooding" icing.

Decorating:

    Once cookies have cooled, dye the outlining icing bright yellow (or your favorite color), reserving some white icing for the polka dots. I used Wilton Icing Colors lemon yellow. Spoon some outlining icing into a plastic sandwich bag, and carefully snip off the tiniest bit of the bottom corner with a pair of scissors. A little goes a long way! Use this as your icing bag and outline the border of your cookies.

    Thin the rest of the icing with a few tablespoons of water, enough so that it will pool and "flood" your cookies out to the outline you made, without being so watery it will run over. Spoon flooding icing onto center of cookies and allow to flood the entire cookie. While the flooded cookies are still wet, fill another bag with the white outlining icing and snip the corner off. Dot the white icing on cookies in a grid pattern to make polka dots. Doing this while the cookies are still wet will make the dots level with the flooding icing and gives it a smooth finish. You can experiment with dot sizes by squeezing more or enlarging the opening in your bag. Allow cookies to dry overnight.

1.  http://food.oregonstate.edu/learn/egg.html
2.  Zhu H. et al., Bacterial killing in gastric juice--effect of pH and pepsin on Escherichia coli and Helicobacter pylori. J Med Microbiology, 2006 Sep;55(Pt 9):1265-70.
3.  Sugar cookie recipe adapted from Gourmet Dec. 2005, available here.