I think it's a thickness thing, I would say icing is thinner, but I don't bake.
I am with erika on this, even though I suspect it is a regional thing. But I'd say icing is closer to a glaze, and frosting is what you can make flowers out of.
Fred: So you don't worry that it's possible for someone to send out a biological or electronic trigger that effectively overrides your own sense of ideals and values and replaces them with an alternative coercive agenda that reduces you to a mindless meat puppet? Shopkeeper: Wow. People used to think that I was paranoid.
'Time Bomb'
Natter 37: Oddly Enough, We've Had This Conversation Before.
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Jesse - Aug 11, 2005 10:36:33 am PDT #7379 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Kat - Aug 11, 2005 10:38:18 am PDT #7380 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
OH! found it on Ask Jeeves (well I didn't, but my friend did).
Frosting has butter or shortening in it, along with the sugar. While icing is just sugar and water. Frosting holds shapes etc and is soft to the touch. Icing dries smooth and hardens.
God bless not only pie and cake, but the internets.
§ ita § - Aug 11, 2005 10:38:52 am PDT #7381 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
No! Frosting goes on with a knife, icing can be manipulated.
It's amazing what I'd have sworn I had no opinion on ten minutes ago.
Now I have to google and see if I need a new opinion.
Nilly - Aug 11, 2005 10:45:44 am PDT #7382 of 10002
Swouncing
Frosting has butter or shortening in it, along with the sugar. While icing is just sugar and water. Frosting holds shapes etc and is soft to the touch. Icing dries smooth and hardens.
Why do both have a low-temperature 'root', then? Because they're not liquidy? Because they may melt if handled wrongly?
[Edit: 7+3=8+2. I had the "6+4" same post # math earlier. It's like my post #s have a conversation of their own, without me.]
§ ita § - Aug 11, 2005 10:50:35 am PDT #7383 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I googled, and my opinion is that the internet has lost consensus. Cook's Illustrated has much more frosting than icing, but its icing does have dairy in it.
Don't know about the origins of the term, Nilly.
Kat - Aug 11, 2005 10:51:53 am PDT #7384 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
I don't know either, Nilly.
No consensus on the internet? say it isn't so! Does the icing have dairy or have shortening/butter?
Hil R. - Aug 11, 2005 10:52:20 am PDT #7385 of 10002
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Why do both have a low-temperature 'root', then? Because they're not liquidy? Because they may melt if handled wrongly?
My guess would be that, if they're not colored, they both look kind of like ice or frost, like on gingerbread houses.
Kat - Aug 11, 2005 10:52:35 am PDT #7386 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Also randomly, I learned how to take screenshots on a mac and it's unaccountably easy.
Nilly - Aug 11, 2005 10:54:12 am PDT #7387 of 10002
Swouncing
the internet has lost consensus
The internet needs a Light-bulb thread?
Thanks anyway, ita and Kat. [Edit: and Hil]
Oh, and Kat! In a book I read last night, somebody was described as wearing a chapeau. The first time I ever encountered that word and looked it up was, surprisingly enough, in a post from you. So I thought of you last night.
Hil R. - Aug 11, 2005 10:54:17 am PDT #7388 of 10002
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
I would say that frosting has some form of solid or near-solid fat -- either butter, shortening, or whipped cream -- while icing has either water or milk, or I suppose it could be made with cream, though I've never seen that.