Now Trending: Mirror Glaze

- By Akhileshwari Anand Raj

What is a Mirror Glaze?

Mirror Glaze Cakes are all the rage and have been for a while. From simple galaxy themes to the more intricate animal prints, you've got it all, and boy do they look beautiful. What with galaxy themes and even just monotone plain finishes which are almost candy-like and deceptively unlike a cake. These are so good that you may be able to catch your own reflection in them! Although it looks like a hard task, it is quite simple - even an occasional hobby baker can conquer it with some patience.

While this glaze can work on just about everything - even sugar cookies, the best way to use this and the most used method is glazing cakes which are typically tiered and frosted with whipped cream. The reason why it works best on whipped cream is that the cake then becomes a clean canvas with smooth finishing, so the glaze will stand out sufficiently.

Some tips on how to get ready to glaze your cake -

1. Make sure your cake, whether frosted with whipped cream or not, is smooth on the top. Even a slight bump will show through once you glaze it.
2. The cake has to be frozen before using the glaze so that the cake is as sturdy as you can get it.
3. For the glaze, if you cannot find glucose syrup, you can typically substitute it with corn syrup.
4. The glaze can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. When you need to use it, slowly bring it back to room temperature, and go slow to avoid overheating. You can store it for up to 10 days.

The Recipe -

A very important component of this recipe is gelatin. However, if you do want to substitute for a vegetarian option, use agar agar instead of gelatin in the same quantity.

Ingredients to glaze 1 9” cake (with no tiers) -

1. Couverture Chocolate (any kind) - 220 gm
2. Condensed Milk - 140 gm
3. Granulated sugar - 200 gm
4. Glucose Syrup - 240 gm
5. Water - 100 ml
6. Hot water - 60 ml
7. Unflavoured gelatin/ powdered agar agar - 16 gm

Bloom the gelatin/ agar agar in hot water. The hot water is essential for the agar agar, the gelatin can be bloomed in normal water as well. Let this mixture sit for 5 minutes. Combine the glucose syrup, the 100 ml of water and sugar in a saucepan. Place this on medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil.

Now, add the gelatin/ agar agar to the boiling mixture. Add the condensed milk as well. Remove from heat. Take this mixture and pour it over the chocolate in a separate bowl, and whisk the mixture until smooth. Pour through a sieve to ensure the glaze is as smooth as you can get it. Add food colouring as required. Use a thermometer to ascertain the temperature of the glaze. Once it is around 30-degree Celsius, use it to glaze your cake.

There is also a much simpler way to go about preparing and glazing a cake, and this is by purchasing the components from any major baking supplies store instead of making the entire glaze from scratch. While the ingredients for the recipe are not too hard to source, the issue with making the mirror glaze from scratch is that it is very time consuming and requires precision. For any baker with orders to fulfil frequently, it becomes difficult to make this often time than not.

In India, one of the easily available supplies for this purpose is the Cold Glaze of the Neutral variety. The advantage of using this is that it comes without colour, so you can develop it in any way you want to. You can use edible glitter or food colouring or a combination of these to achieve your desired look. You can also add flavouring to it, maybe even a contrasting flavour to add a kick to your cake!

This is all you have to know before you start working with mirror glaze. Try it out and see for yourself the magic that this can add to your cakes!

Share your creations!

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