[Florencey]

fondant and frosting are gross and expensive, and icing's messy. i would use buttercream, but it's difficult to get it to taste like anything except, well, plain old buttercream (although i added jam to it today and it was fairly good). does anyone know nice, easy cake icing/covering recipes that aren't as hideously bad for you?

[meeow]

Um.. melted chocolate? jam? marzipan? nutella? peanut butter (just putting it out there!)? It seems that you've covered the majority of the icings available!

[Viennaberry]

Swiss merangue.

[Happy-Turtle]

Chocolate ganache

[duracell]

Add vanilla or lemon or pretty much any flavour you want to buttercream.

If you're doing a chocolate cake - melt some chocolate with double cream for icing.

Nutella works well as a sponge-sandwich-filler.

[Florencey]

(Original post by Viennaberry)
Swiss merangue.

aha! i'd seen this on various baking blogs, but is it not really difficult? what sort of texture does it give?

[kiss_me_now9]

A variety of things. I make an awesome chocolate frosting (which is neither gross nor expensive) and I love making chocolate ganache especially for special cakes. I personally don't like covering cakes with just chocolate as I find it really weird to try and eat what is basically a bar of dairy milk on cake...

All icings will be bad for you so not sure what you want suggested there. Icing is basically butter and sugar or cream and sugar. When making buttercream if it's too buttery, then start again and take some of the butter out (about a quarter) and add in milk.

[Heloise with an H]

Lemon cupcakes, with a little lemon curd, topped with a quick meringue topping...damn that's good!

[about_my_bow]

You could buy some of the betty crocker frostings which are really sweet and pretty tasty.

Or you could have a go at making your own marshmallow fondant, which has the pliability of fondant but is made primarily of melted marshmallows and therefore tastes much nicer.
http://candy.about.com/od/fondantcan...mm_fondant.htm

Or you could used modelling chocolate which is the same sort of thing as the marshmallow fondant, however is mainly made of chocolate and again therefore tastes much nicer than standard fondant icing.
http://www.theextraordinaryartofcake...te-recipe.html

[Viennaberry]

(Original post by Florencey)
aha! i'd seen this on various baking blogs, but is it not really difficult? what sort of texture does it give?

Here's a good recipe
http://www.myfudo.com/2012/05/holida...e-buttercream/

It's very easy to make and a much healthier alternative to a traditional buttercream, with the same texture but much less fat & calories.

[Feefifofum]

My mouth.

[ChocoholicPolyglot]

I normally beat unsalted butter with icing sugar and then I add ovaltine, fresh cream, milk and some cocoa powder into it. Beat well and cover your cake!

[ChocoholicPolyglot]

Oops. I missed the bit where it said "aren't as hideously bad for you".....

[Bellissima]

i don't really like anything on the top unless it's cupcakes, but if i do... on like a strawberry cake... then add whipped cream (just whip drom double cream) but i LOVE butter cream that is the best. why would you want it to taste like anything else it's delish... i don't like any other kind of icing or topping

[Florencey]

thanks everyone- the swiss meringue doesn't seem half as hard as i thought it'd be

[superwolf]

When using chocolate ganache, as a change you can add a glug of some nice-tasting spirits - I once added cointreau for a chocolate orange cake.

Next experiment: cherry brandy.

[Da CorrupteD KiD]

(Original post by Florencey)
fondant and frosting are gross and expensive, and icing's messy. i would use buttercream, but it's difficult to get it to taste like anything except, well, plain old buttercream (although i added jam to it today and it was fairly good). does anyone know nice, easy cake icing/covering recipes that aren't as hideously bad for you?

Buttercream is by far the most versatile 'frosting' for cakes. You can easily adapt the recipe as it doesn't have any strong flavours on its own, unlike chocolate ganache. For starters, try adding some coffee powder to it to make a coffee buttercream. You can also add fruit puree, spices and floral extracts like rose water or jasmine too.

All the meringue based buttercreams and french buttercream (which uses egg yolks instead of egg whites) would produce a very silky smooth and light buttercream. I personally think that buttercream is the way to go as I'm not a fan of fondant either. I really can't think of anything tastier than buttercreams. Plus there are so much you can do with buttercream in terms of decorations. Try piping some roses or just decorate the whole cake using a basketweave pattern. Or whatever takes your fancy.

[Herr]

Unless it is a birthday cake, I generally prefer to leave the cake undecorated

Otherwise I like to use semi-sweet chocolate fudge.

[PhoenixFortune]

Melted marshmallow.

[The Bagel Guy]

Buttercream, with lemon juice in

My housemates believe that the cake is simply a vehicle for the buttercream, so it's usually what kind of cake I'll put on the slab of buttercream