glaze

Danube wave with red cake topping

Raspberry cake with cake topping

Cake glaze (also called jelly glaze) is a ready-to-eat coating for fruit tarts . It is made from concentrated preparations or dry mixes by adding liquid. In the German bakery trade alone, 5,900 tons are used annually.

sorts

Commercially available cake icing is available from food retailers in the varieties 'clear' or 'red', as well as 'sugared' or 'unsweetened' and offered as a mixture that you can mix yourself. You can make it yourself with fruit juice, water, sugar or sugar substitutes, cornstarch and possibly a little lemon juice or syrup.

Gelling agent

The most important component of cake glaze is the gelling agent. This binds the liquid, usually water or fruit juice, with a type of sugar . The most commonly used gelling agents are carrageenan and agar agar .

In addition, acid regulators such. B. Potassium tartrate is used. Plant extracts or carmine (E 120) are used as coloring agents in red cake glaze .

In addition, pasty concentrates are often used, which are brought to the desired consistency with water and only need to be heated for processing. The ingredients, however, correspond to the dry powders. This variant is mainly used in trade and industry.

use

Since the gelling agents are only dissolved in the liquid, heating to 70–80 ° C is sufficient. Prolonged heating to temperatures above 100 ° C destroys the structures and leads to spoilage. When cooling down, the liquid cast solidifies and forms a shiny, transparent and more or less solid mass that surrounds the fruit.

In contrast to the glaze or couverture for cakes , the cake topping not only has a decorative function, but also creates a solid connection between the cake base and the fruit layer, as the fruit is not baked, but loosely placed on it afterwards. This is what makes it possible to combine pastries and raw fruit, particularly fruits with a high water content such as strawberries or raspberries , which would lose their shape, but often also their color and aroma, if heated.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kippconcept gmbh, Bonn: Knowledge forum for baked goods - coatings for fruit cakes. In: www.wissensforum-backwaren.de. Retrieved July 2, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Is cake glaze actually vegan? Retrieved February 21, 2019 .