So if you're planning a summer birthday party outside, or another outdoor event where you intend to serve cake or cupcakes frosted with buttercream, you'll want to use a buttercream that's a bit more heat-resistant. Oh, and about the butter, I always use the unsalted kind. You can certainly make this buttercream with salted butter, but I like to control how much salt actually goes into my buttercream.
For this reason, I use unsalted butter in all of my buttercream recipes, and only add salt to taste at the very end. I also like to use fine table salt for this, since I've found that kosher or sea salt won't dissolve properly. Salt aside, American buttercream really is very sweet. If you prefer a buttercream that is almost as easy to make but a little less sweet, try flour buttercream.
Although flour buttercream is hardly any more difficult to make than American buttercream, it's less sweet and has a more subtle flavor. It also holds up a lot better in warm temperatures because of its lower fat content and the added structure of the pudding base.
Bonus, bonus, bonus! Like I said, you make it by first cooking up a simple pudding base made with milk, sugar, and a little flour. By whisking the flour into the sugar before adding the milk, you minimize the risk of getting flour lumps.
Whisk to incorporate the milk. And please notice the complete lack of flour lumps! Then place the pan over low heat and allow the mixture to come to a boil, whisking continuously to avoid lumps in the pudding. Once the mixture is boiling, turn the heat down to low and cook the pudding for a few minutes to cook the flour, stirring continuously.
Once cooked through, transfer the pudding to a shallow, heatproof container and immediately cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly onto the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature before adding it to the beaten butter. It will kind of look like glue, but that's okay One last note on the sugar: some other recipes for flour buttercream instruct you to make the pudding base with just milk and flour.
The idea is that you then beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy and only then do you mix in the pudding base. This method has never worked for me.
Somehow, the granulated sugar never dissolves completely, resulting in a grainy, crunchy buttercream. Personally, I like buttercream to be smooth, but if crunchy is your thing, you now know what to do! German buttercream might actually be my favorite. Or, um, one of my favorites, at least. It's just as easy to make as the flour buttercream, except you use custard instead of pudding. To make things even easier, cornstarch is added to the uncooked custard mixture, helping to thicken the custard and reducing the chances of accidentally overcooking the eggs.
You still shouldn't boil it, though, so keep a close eye on the custard as it cooks. Because this buttercream is custard-based , it has a gorgeous yellow color. And although this buttercream contains a fair amount of butter and three egg yolks, it is surprisingly light for a buttercream, both in texture and taste.
It's also a bit softer than most buttercreams and, like American buttercream, it doesn't hold up well in warmer temperatures. However, you can easily thicken it by using a thicker custard base, such as homemade pastry cream.
That stuff is amazing! So those are the three kinds of buttercream you can make using the beaten-butter method. Now let's take a closer look at the cubed-butter method.
This method is a little bit trickier to pull off than the beaten-butter method, though the theory is still pretty straightforward. In the following photos I'm making a Swiss buttercream, but the method is similar if you're making an Italian buttercream or French buttercream. Like I said, I'm using Swiss meringue here. It's important to keep mixing as you do this, because you're again trying to create a water-in-fat emulsion.
Take your time! Once you've added all the butter, the mixture may start to look separated , despite all that careful mixing. Don't panic! Just keep mixing and the buttercream will eventually come together.
It usually doesn't take longer than a few minutes of mixing before the mixture magically transforms into smooth and creamy buttercream. So remember: should the buttercream separate, just keep mixing until it's smooth! Here are the three different kinds of buttercream that can be made using the cubed-butter method.
French buttercream is a gorgeously smooth, velvety, rich buttercream. Because it's made with an egg-yolk foam i. As a result, it doesn't hold up very well in warm temperatures. Personally, I think French buttercream is the most difficult buttercream to master, because it requires cooking up a hot sugar syrup and carefully drizzling it into beaten yolks with the mixer running to prevent the yolks from scrambling.
But it's totally worth it! Just make sure to keep kids and pets and clumsy relatives out of the kitchen. Sugar and water cooked over the stove while egg whites are whipped in the mixer.
After it cools down, you add butter and flavor. It also gives you those sharp edges on a cake — it is just not as easy to smooth as the Swiss. But you can just leave it running and go do other things.
Ok that is all I have for you today! Recipes are all below — and if you have any questions — feel free to ask! I might be the only person in the history of the world that has ever been grounded from baking. That's right. When I was a teen, it wasn't the computer, or the. Thanks so much! One of my first cake-decorating attempts relied only on American buttercream, and it was hard to work with heat-wise and super sugary.
One question: Can you quantify how much cake is covered by 1 batch of the Italian meringue buttercream? At what point would you need to scale up when making a layered cake?
Hi Jo! Sorry for the delay. I definitely agree that American Buttercream is hard to work with — especially for layered cakes. It gives you enough to get a nice smooth coat and have a little left over for decorating borders.
I think this was unintentional? Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I believe anyone can create beautiful and delicious desserts right in their own kitchen. It doesn't have to be hard or stressful. Let me prove it to you Nov 5. Oct Oct 1. Sep Sep 2. Which Buttercream Is Best? Flour Buttercream Recipe: Flour-Based Very Vanilla Buttercream Frosting What it is: Unlike the egg-based buttercreams, this one starts with a roux of sorts: milk, cream, flour, and sugar are cooked to a thick pudding-like consistency, and beaten until cooled.
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