Hi. Just arrived a month ago. Where can one find cupcake or cake frosting around Zurich?

Any bigger Coop or Migros (supermarket) have enough frostings, dippings, tortenguss, etc to choose from. They are usually next to the flour/gelatin/sugar section.

This should be a thumb rule whatever country you visit, though...

Sorry. Wasn't clear enough. I'm looking for the cake icing or frosting American style. Betty Crocker style. Any suggestions?

You can buy icing sugar and make it yourself, there are tons of recipes on the Internet. Much better than what you get out of a can.

They used to sell it at the gourmet deli in Kusnacht, just up from the coop, but I don't know if they carry it anymore.

No American style frosting available here. At least, not in supermarkets. Not a tradition here, a thin icing sugar frosting or chocolate ("Kuvertüre") cover, that's the thing here.
I also think your best way to go is to look for a recipe in the internet and then make it. Okay, will take up some of your time, but a) you know exactly what it contains (no funny sounding additives) and b) hunting for it might take up much more time. And you will spend less money on it.

I just looked it up - in the U.K. it's called butter icing and is basically icing sugar beaten with butter with a bit of vanilla essence.

I remember making it when I was about six and and it takes just a couple of minutes with an electric beater.

I could have made some in the time it took me to write this post.

Except that butter icing is not so good in this heat .. you need to keep the cakes in the fridge and only take them out to eat ... so no keeping pretty looking cakes on a plate on the table or your icing delight will slide away .. (as I know to my cost )

They carry some at American Food Ave. out of Geneva.

I've ordered things from them once or twice and was pleased with the service and shipping time.


While I am a fan of buttercream and cream cheese frostings, I know that (some) bakeries tend to use shortening instead and this tends to be a bit less tricky with the heat. (It's probably also what is used in the canned frostings.) Here is a recipe that says it doesn't have to be refrigerated.

Being a bit of a penny-pincher, I generally only spend "Swiss prices" on things that either are too hard to get or so tedious to make myself that it's worthwhile from a time vs money standpoint... Regular frostings are among the things I would tend to make myself BUT if other circumstances dictate (weather, storage implications) that something more "stable" would be better, I could see myself spending a bit more.

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You buy "Puder Zucker" (Icing Sugar).

You use very soft butter, about 60gr (1/4 of a 250gr block) .... beat the butter with a teaspoon of icing sugar, then keep adding small amounts while creaming it. That amount of butter is good for half a packet of icing sugar - normal size being (I think) 250gr?.. anyway that`s enough to ice the top and sides of a regular round cake. At the end, if it is a bit too stiff for your liking, you can add a small teaspoon of boiling water, and then beat with electric beater until its all soft and creamy.

Well, anyway, that works for me. If you add too much water by mistake, just add more icing sugar.

If you're willing to drive, they have it at Cindy's Diner in the little shop they have. On the A3 in either direction near Wadenswil. Also on http://www.americanmarket.ch/ at an outrageous price, but if you gotta have it, they have it.

8.90chf for a can of frosting?!

Afoodave has them for "only" 4.95chf.

I made butter cream frosting, search in bbc.co.uk\food, made the cake and the frosting on Friday, decorated the cake on Saturday and put it out on the table and it did not melt a bit.
You can make the butter cream frosting upto a week in advance and keep it refrigerated, before you wanted to use it again bring it to room temp, rewhip again and use it.
As other said it is less than 10 mins effort and well worth it. Coop and Migros sell the Roll out icing or something that looks pretty similar

Can someone explain to the (dippy Brit) what "shortening" is - as in what it is in Switzerland (I clicked on the link above but it doesn't help with finding it here).

I've only ever used butter in frosting/icing (or cream cheese) and if it's hot out then it does melt into a nasty mess. Would really like a recipe that doesn't do that.

Thanks

I am almost positive I have seen Betty Crocker frostings in the english Orel Fussli on the Bahnhof St.

It's hydrogenated (meaning solid) vegetable oil/fat. I forget the term for it in German at the moment, but it's in Migros, next to the lard and other solid fats in the cooking oils section.

It's often used in cookies, pastry/pie dough and frostings as it has a higher melting point than butter and doesn't separate as butter does. I dislike the mouthfeel in frostings though as it has a slightly different texture.

All frostings will melt if left in the sun/high temps, but the shortening has the advantage of having the higher melting point and being less likely to turn into glop.

I remember trying to explain what shortening was in a Swedish grocery ages ago....oh, that was a comic moment worthy of candid camera...if only I would have thought to film it.

Does anyone have a recipe for a dark chocolate frosting, where the final product looks almost black, perhaps with coffee in it?

cheers!

CHOCOLATE GANACHE

250grams high quality dark choc broken into small pieces- Cremant
200ml Cream - Volrahm
2tbl espresso
bring cream to a boil, add coffee
and drop in all the chocolate

remove from heat and mix until choc has melted, leave to cool abt 1-2hours.

Thanks so much! Sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. Just to make sure, it's 2 T of espresso liquid (not powder), right?

Correct! Make sure not to put it in the fridge. It will get too hard and you'll lose the consistency if you try to nuke it.