Petit Four Icing Test | Cupcakes

It is clear that this blog covers a wide variety of topics. It's my blog, so mostly it's about me and my life.
With that said, cake is a big part of my life at times.
Next week I am making some 6 dozen cupcakes for a friend's bridal shower in addition to one smaller cake for the shower and two 10" cakes for a different order. I'm super excited, but I have a lot of planning to do.

I had this idea to use poured fondant or Petit Four Icing.
I've done poured icing before, but it's been a while and I couldn't remember how it turned out.
That's why today I decided to take it to the test kitchen for a little run through.

First things first, here is the recipe I used:

Petit Fours Icing

• 9 cups confectioner"s sugar (about 2 pounds) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (I would rather lick a stick than use almond extract, so I used vanilla)
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup

Combine all of the ingredients. Heat the mixture on top of a double boiler until lukewarm.

Remove the double boiler from the heat. Leave the icing over the hot water to keep it thin. If the icing is too thick, add a few more drops of hot water to thin it to the desired consistency. You want it to be thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, but thin enough to pour. Remove half of the icing, and put it in a small bowl. Add a few drops of food color to each part to tint the icings in delicate colors. If the icing becomes cool and thick, reheat it over the warm water. You can also thicken an icing that is too thin by stirring in confectioner’s sugar a teaspoon at a time.

This is what my icing looked like:

A few things about the icing...
I didn't use all 9 cups of sugar because it was already super thick with only about eight.
The recipe says to leave it on the hot water to keep it warm, but I had to keep the burner on and the icing hot in order to use it effectively.

You'll see the drizzle decorations in the last picture. I had to put the icing in the microwave to keep it hot enough to drizzle, it was a hassle.

I made these (yummy!) chocolate cupcakes and once they had cooled sufficiently I dipped them upside down in the bowl (shown above) and set them to dry.

After they were dry I colored a little bit of the icing pink & purple and drizzled it on the cupcakes:

As I said above, I had to keep heating up the colored icing to allow me to drizzle.
The point of using the poured icing was to save time, easy decorating and a fun smooth look.
In the end I think they look fine, but could look better.

Then I tasted one:

The actual cake: DELICIOUS!

The icing: not so much.

I've never been a fan of fondant and this doesn't taste exactly like it, but it's close enough.
Because of the excess amount of powdered (confectioner's) sugar the icing was over the top sugary.

I have a fabulous butter-cream recipe that tastes amazing so it's hard to compare.
I don't think I'll waste anymore time in the test kitchen, I'm going with what I know will taste great!

Good luck all you Marthas!