Icing? Frosting?

Icing or frosting? Is there a difference? I usually use the former as the noun and the latter as the verb, but I could be wrong.

Friends, I’m back from an unscheduled hiatus with a quote of a day from Baker’s [the chocolate company] Favorite Chocolate Recipes: A Handbook of Chocolate Cookery, 1952:

Frosting your cake is an art. Some people are more gifted than others, but everyone can turn out a cake that is good to look at.

Words to live by? Possibly not.

I’ve been making lots of cupcakes lately, not out of any nod to foodie fashion, but for the simple reason that they’re easier to share with many people than is a single cake.

These coconut cupcakes were made using Ina Garten’s recipe. Out of cream cheese (I used the last bit in the icing last week’s batch of chocolate cupcakes [Kathleen's Devil's Food Cake from The New Basics]), I turned to the Baker’s cookbook for a chocolate version of seven minute frosting, but really, the white version was so pretty, I decided to keep most of them snowy rather than muddy.

Here’s me trying to photograph a la Jane Brocket with a digital camera and a not-vintage-but-embroidered tablecloth (I’m relieved that Brocket, too, neglects to press her linens before shooting...).

More cupcakes are on the horizon this weekend. My friend Pat, subject of January’s Food for Thought, called yesterday to ask if I would contribute a dozen (which quickly became two dozen) to a cupcake drive she’s organizing for My Sister’s Place, and how can you say no to that? Pat suggested cupcakes that would be Valentine’s Day appropriate, like red velvet, but I’ve never found a red velvet cake I liked. I’m counting on careful hand and red food coloring to make a white icing ballet slipper pink. Barring that, there’s always chocolate.