Make Brigadeiro Your New Cake Icing
Brazil is home to many great things, not the least of which is the brigadeiro . Composed almost entirely of sweetened condensed milk, the mixture cooks to a thick consistency and can be easily broken into acorn-sized balls and sprinkled with sprinkles. It’s a tasty, sweet treat, and that’s where their story might end. But the brigadeiro has a secret: It doesn’t have to stand on its own like candy — it can also fill and freeze your cake.
I was lucky enough to eat a brigadeiro-coated cake in Brazil and immediately fell in love with the sticky coating. The cake was airy and the icing clung to every piece of the cake in the best possible way. It almost acted like a cake magnet. If you had some of this sticky topping on your fork, you could run it across your plate to pick up every last crumb. At first I thought it was ganache, but the texture was more sticky, more like caramel, only it didn’t taste like caramel. It was less sweet and noticeably chocolaty, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
This was because I never even imagined the brigadeiro as a putty. Once I found out that it could work as a whole, I was ecstatic. Unlike Swiss meringue, caramel filling, or Italian buttercream, brigadeiro is easy to make at home, meaning that a glaze made from the same material will be available and worth a try. As expected, this brazilian cake topping is incredibly easy to make – the ingredients are few and probably already in your kitchen, or at least easy to find.
The brigadeiro topping and toppings are made in the same way as candies, but you stop cooking sooner. The mixture is cooked to varying degrees of thickness before the texture becomes as thick as the candy being rolled out. Traditional brigadeiro milk candy is made by boiling sweetened condensed milk with a little butter and plenty of cocoa powder in a saucepan over medium-low heat. That’s it, three ingredients in one pot. After two minutes, the mixture begins to bubble, and the water evaporates over the next five to ten minutes until a sticky substance begins to build up. It goes from a loose texture to a firmer texture in minutes, so you need to be sure you don’t get distracted and stir constantly.
If you were making candies, you would keep making them until they bunch up. However, for the frosting, you can take it off the heat at any point before, depending on the texture you want for your dessert. To keep the frosting sticky and runny, stop cooking after five minutes. If the cake filling or coating is soft and spreadable, but stays on top of the cake when cooled, stop cooking after seven or eight minutes. For a thick, swirling frosting that you can apply with a star tip, cook for about ten minutes—about the amount you can use to fill a cake. Note that the frosting will cool much harder than it would in a pan, so stop cooking sooner than you think.
The added benefits of using this cake topping at home are that your kitchen will smell like chocolate, it’s hard to mess up, and if you overcook it, you’ll just make brigadeiro candy. Roll it into balls and sprinkle with sprinkles for a fun treat.
The brigadeiro recipes are simple and don’t vary much from site to site. I adapted my recipe from this . The only note I would add to most recipes is to sift the cocoa powder into the pan so there are no lumps. If you haven’t sifted it, or if there are pieces left in your mixture, it’s okay. Experience has taught me that 80% of cake decorating is creatively hiding mistakes. Simply top with chocolate chips, sprinkles or coconut flakes. Double this recipe if you want to fill and freeze a two-layer cake.
Brigadeiro cake filling and icing
Ingredients:
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tablespoon butter
- ¼ cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s Special Dark )
Add condensed milk and butter to a small non-stick saucepan. Pour in cocoa powder. Whisk or use a rubber spatula to stir constantly over medium to low heat for 5-10 minutes, depending on the desired glaze consistency.
When you reach the desired consistency, remove the filling from the heat. For a smooth, shiny frosting, use it while it’s still hot. To spread the frosting, let the mixture cool for a few minutes until it sets slightly, then use. The filling should still be quite warm when you use it; once it’s fully installed, it can be difficult to distribute. Enjoy your favorite hot drink.