Rhubarb & Orange Glaze Icing

I'm not a huge fan of thick and heavy icing, I find it can overpower cakes. Instead I prefer to use a simple glaze icing, it adds decoration, sweetness and flavour, without overpowering the actual cake itself.

I often make powdered sugar glaze, it's a simple way to decorate cakes. It is the easiest icing to prepare, and you can spread or drizzle it over your bakes, adding a lovely sheen to the top.

This recipe provides enough glaze to cover a 900g (2lb) cake. But you can also use it to cover muffins, cinnamon rolls, scones, doughnuts, traybakes, biscuits or cookies.

Recipe ingredients

• Rhubarb - I use a couple of stems of rhubarb, cut into batons, to stew down and produce a juice from. If you can get your hands on early season rhubarb it is beautifully pink, and not quite as sour as older stems. The new stems not only give flavour but also a lovely pink hue to the juice.
• Orange - For the best flavour I like to use freshly squeezed orange juice from a couple of oranges. You can substitute with store bought orange juice.
• Sugar - I use icing sugar (powdered sugar) to make a glaze icing, as it has a very fine consistency and results is a super smooth icing.

How to make rhubarb orange glaze icing

• Start by making some rhubarb and orange juice. Add the rhubarb and orange juice to a small saucepan.
• Place the saucepan over medium-high heat and poach the rhubarb until soft, around 5 minutes.

• Turn up the heat and reduce the mixture by half.
• Pass the juice through a fine sieve and discard the stewed rhubarb.

TOP TIP: Reducing the juice by half removes excess water from the fruit, leaving you with a more intense fruit flavour.

• Add the icing sugar to a small bowl, and spoon in 4-5 teaspoons of juice, stirring the glaze to a smooth paste, until there are no lumps and you have achieved the desired consistency.
• For a thicker paste add less juice. For a thinner drizzle icing add more juice.
• This quantity of icing is enough to completely cover the top of a 900g (2lb) loaf cake. Alternative use it to drizzle over a cake.

Recipe variations

This is a basic glaze icing and you can use any liquid to combine with the icing sugar. Here are some flavour ideas:

• Poach other fruits to make a juice, try strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, mango, peach or apricot.
• Use freshly squeezed citrus fruits, try orange, lime, lemon or grapefruit juice.
• Replace one of the teaspoons of juice with a teaspoon of extract, try vanilla, almond, orange or peppermint extract.
• Swap one of the teaspoons of juice for a little alcohol, like gin, rum or vodka, eg white rum and lime juice drizzle over coconut lime cake.
• If you don't want to add any flavour then simple replace the fruit juice with a little water for a basic glaze.
• The rhubarb and orange juice have added natural colour to this icing. However if using another fruit juice, say lemon juice, you might want to add a little touch of food colouring.

Useful hints and tips

1. Reducing the fruit juice results in a more intense fruit flavour.
2. Take time to work the icing to a smooth consistency, and remove any lumps of icing sugar.
3. Wait for your bakes to cool completely before icing. If you spread icing over a warm cake it will only melt and run completely off the cake.
4. Ideal for icing dairy free and vegan bakes as this glaze icing containing no dairy.
5. Allergy advice: gluten free, dairy free, egg free, soya free and nut free. For comprehensive and detailed allergy advice go to Allergy UK.

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Additional recipe suggestions

This icing is perfect for drizzling over rhubarb or orange flavoured bakes. Try it on these easy bakes:

• Rhubarb & Orange Loaf Cake
• Easy Rhubarb & Ginger Cake
• Rhubarb Frangipane Tart
• Rhubarb & Almond Loaf Cake
• Blood Orange Cake