Best for: Beginner and sweet tooth.
American Buttercream is the sweetest frosting of all styles (Swiss, Italian, French, German & Korean) because of a ratio of 2:1 sugar to butter by weight. It is so sweet (at least for me) that I adjusted the amount of sugar to my sweetness preference. I tend to use this recipe for cupcake frosting. Depending on the size of cakes and at what temperature/places they are displayed, Swiss Meringue Buttercream is what I often use. It is silky and have smooth texture for assembling cakes.
Ingredients:
Unsalted Butter 454g (16oz), room temperature.
Icing Sugar 400g, more or less depending on your sweetness and thickness preference. 600g to 800g of icing sugar work well for piping flowers with uphold petals.
Heavy Cream 8 tbsp
Vanilla Extract (or other flavoring) 1tbsp
Food coloring (optional)
Method:
In a mixing bowl, beat butter on medium-high speed until creamy and pale in color, about 5 minutes.
Scrape the side of mixing box, add in first half of icing sugar (200g) and beat butter on medium-high speed for 3-5 minutes.
Scrape the side of mixing box again, add in second half of icing sugar (200g) and vanilla extract, beat on medium-high speed for 3-5 minutes.
Start adding heavy cream, 1 tbsp at a time.
Check the butter cream consistency and add more if needed.
Add food coloring (optional) and continue beating until it reaches desired consistency.
Place butter cream into pastry bag fitted with piping tip of your choice, decorate as desired.
NOTED:
- Beat in chill/cool butter helps creating firm butter cream (also creating shinning texture), good for using with Russian Piping Tips and upright petal piping.
- Also keep your working space at a low/cool temperature to prevent buttercream melting while working with it. If it become soft, put in in a fridge for 3 to 5 minutes, take out and mix it again with spatula.
- If you have questions about cupcakes and buttercream, please check out this post:
Good luck and have fun baking !
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