I have been exploring drip cakes because I have never made one before, and one of the popular ways of making a drip cake is to use royal icing. I was excited to try this, because royal icing is fairly straightforward for making, and I almost always have meringue powder in my pantry. I’ve done a little playing with royal icing for cookies, and I figured this would be a natural progression.
Finding a Drip Consistency
I mixed up the royal icing according to the meringue powder container’s instructions. It ended up being pretty thick. I knew from past experience that the easiest solution was just to add water bit-by-bit until I got a good “drippy” consistency. I tested the icing’s consistency by pouring a small amount on a plate. When I got the right balance of water to icing, I poured it into my handy-dandy condiment bottle, and got ready to put it on my cake. Once again, I’d just made a basic family cake frosted with buttercream, since this was for an experiment. One of these days, if my skills get good enough, I may invest in some dummy cakes. Until then, friends and family will have to suffer through eating my experiments.
Why Royal Icing
Back to the royal icing drip cake. I like how easy it is to make royal icing. I thought this would be my favorite. It’s pure white, which lends itself to coloring and painting, it sets well, and I can adjust the consistency fairly easily. I was worried I’d waited too long and the icing had started to set inside the bottle, but it flowed and dripped down the cake just fine. The problems came if there were bubbles or if I felt I needed to add to a drip or area because it didn’t quite get covered the way I was wanting. Cold buttercream meant that the royal icing hardened quickly, making blending difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps I’d have an easier time if the buttercream was closer to room temperature.
Why Not Royal Icing For a Drip Cake
I could see where all of my corrections were, I could see where I’d added a little to drips. It was really frustrating, but since I try to find a silver lining in all of my experiments, I’ve discovered that if I wanted a purposeful layered look, royal icing is probably my best bet. Royal icing drip cakes are not the easiest version of drip cakes that I’ve tried, but I can definitely see some really fun possibilities for them. It comes with the not-to-be-ignored bonus of tasting sweetly neutral, unlike white chocolate ganache.
I think with some further tweaking, the royal icing version of the drip cake could be a great addition to my design arsenal. Have you tried the royal icing drip cake? What is your preferred method of drip cake?
