The Fruity Breakfast Ingredient You Should Be Adding To Store-Bought Frosting

The texture and flavor of a cake are highly regarded, but the frosting makes the first impression. The sugary spread serves as the initial bite, but if you're using store-bought frosting, it may not make the impact you're hoping it'll have. To give it a fruity burst of flavor, mix your store-bought frosting with a few dollops of jam.

There's nothing like a bit of fruit to balance out cake's denseness. They add a fresh element to the dessert, elevating the flavor into something truly delectable. Even if you're not the biggest fan of strawberries and raspberries adorning the exterior of your cake, fruit still serves a purpose in other ways. Alone, store-bought icing isn't ideal; it gets the job done, but it's too thin, overly sweet, and artificial-tasting in the process. Mixing it with jam is the one tip you need to elevate store-bought frosting.

The bouncy consistency of jam easily dissolves into the frosting, giving it a bright, tangy tinge. Jam can be an uneven blend of watery and gloopy, though, so don't add it directly onto the frosting. Start out with about one cup of jam for a whole jar of frosting and combine them with an electric mixer. This will help the jam disperse evenly while thickening the frosting with pockets of air created by the mixer. You can also keep adding one tablespoon of jam until you get the taste you're after. If the frosting is too thin, sprinkle in some powdered sugar and mix.

Vanilla is always the go-to pick when you're out of ideas for a dessert, but there's a reason the flavor is synonymous with being basic. It's still delicious, but you can easily spruce it up with a fruity addition. To still have a dominant vanilla flavor, mix a little bit of vanilla blackberry jam with vanilla buttercream frosting. The vanilla-squared pairing hones in on the creamy taste while the blackberry delivers a tart edge. The combo is highly versatile, bringing an elevated taste to chocolate cakes, fudge, and brownies.

For a rich, honeyed flavor, pairing a cinnamon-sugar churro-crusted cheesecake with apple jam is exactly what you need. The combination of the dulce de leche and sugary churros is wholly intoxicating; apple jam slightly lifts the flavor while matching its sweetness, making the dessert even more luscious. Combine the jam with dulce de leche frosting for a fluffier finish on your cheesecake.

There's nothing more classic than a strawberry-chocolate duo. The bright burst of strawberry somehow makes chocolate refreshing and even sweeter. Adding strawberry jam to chocolate frosting turns the iconic combination into a perfectly versatile topping. It's great for cupcakes and the like, but we really love how it amps up a classic pound cake. The simple and refined dessert gets a quick, flavorful boost that's much richer than the simple glaze that's typically applied to it.