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Glazing Mastery

© Lindsay W. McSweeney

In the culinary world, “glazing” means giving food a smooth, shiny, sometimes transparent finish. Many cooked dishes benefit from glazing, especially desserts, breads, and vegetables. Glazing techniques are easy and widely applicable. The same icing or fruit glaze can be used on a myriad of cakes, cookies or pies. The most delicious icing of all, a ganache, is nothing more than a chocolate glaze. A simple egg glaze can make any baked crust shiny. Glazing vegetables adds both eye appeal and taste to the final dish.

There are three basic kinds of glazes for desserts, icing, fruit, and ganache. Icing glaze is simply confectioner’s sugar combined with some liquid. Many pastries are made with an opaque icing glaze made from whisking together ½ cup powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons heavy cream, and often ¼ teaspoon of flavoring like rum, vanilla extract, or maple syrup. Alternatively, you can use a transparent icing glaze made from whisking together ½ cup of powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon of water, and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice (or other juices). The amount of liquid can be adjusted for taste, i.e. lemon juice can be substituted for some of the water. But in order for the glaze to spread or drizzle well, the final consistency should be similar to a raw egg white.

Fruit glazes can be made in either of two ways. The easiest method is to melt ½ cup jelly, jam or preserves in a saucepan, stir in 1 tablespoon of flavoring, and then strain the liquid if necessary to remove seeds. Great combinations can be made from combining a particular jam with the same fruit liqueur. Combine raspberry jelly with Chambord, apricot jelly with apricot bandy, currant jelly with cassis, or apple jelly with either Calvados or pear liqueur. Fruit glazes can be made well in advance and stored in the refrigerator, but they need to be warm to spoon over the fruit, cookies, or whatever. I store them in a glass jar and just microwave them for 10 –15 seconds when I need to use them.

A second fruit glaze can be made if you’re poaching fruit, such as pears or apricots. Since fruit is poached in a sugar syrup, once the fruit is tender and has been removed, boil the syrup until it reaches the softball stage, i.e. when the whole surface is covered with large bubbles which pop in a lazy fashion. If you want the glaze to be a little thicker, use a little arrowroot. In a little bowl or cup mix two tablespoons of the syrup with one teaspoon of arrowroot. Then mix the syrup/arrowroot mixture into the rest of the syrup.

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