Mason-Dixon Recipes

Buttercream Frosting

The frosting was a thick buttercream, rich as a satin dress laid against the firm, fragile texture of the cake. With each bite, the cake melted first, then the frosting, one after another, like lovers tumbling into bed.

         — Erica Bauermeister, The School of Essential Ingredients

Buttercream frosting is a relatively new entrant to the culinary world. It's only 60 years old. The frosting became popular almost immediately and is the go-to frosting by most quality bakers today, because it is so much better than sweet frostings.

The difference between the two can be inferred from their names. To be a buttercream, the recipe needs to include butter. Big surprise. Sweet frosting is a very low-cost way to top a cake and is typically what you will find at your local grocery store bakery.

Rather than butter, sweet frostings are made with shortening, or solid fat that is made from vegetable oils like soybean or cottonseed oil. Because shortening lacks taste, these frostings often need to be reinforced with artificial flavorings or additives. This tends to make the texture of sweet frosting a bit gritty.

There are four common types of buttercream: American buttercream, Swiss buttercream, Italian Buttercream, and French Buttercream. American buttercream is your made-it-at-home style, because quite simply it’s the easiest frosting to make. You simply combine the main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, vanilla), refrigerate, and you’re done

Swiss buttercream is a meringue-style buttercream, meaning it contains whipped egg whites. Swiss buttercream involves cooking the egg whites and sugar together, whipping them into a meringue, and then beating in the butter. The result is a smooth, silky buttercream that can be spread smoothly on cakes.

Italian buttercream is the most complex recipe to make because it involves whipping the egg whites at room temperature, pouring the hot sugary mixture into the egg whites to cook them, and then beating in the butter and other ingredients. While the change is subtle, its important because the result is a buttercream that is the richest, smoothest, and most stable of the buttercreams.

French buttercream frosting is made the same way as the Italian kind, except it uses the whole egg rather than egg whites only.

The following recipe is the American variety and comes from Two Sisters  

INGREDIENTS

1 cup real butter, slightly softened
3 tsp vanilla
1 lb powdered sugar (4 cups)
1-2 tbsp milk (as needed)

DIRECTIONS

Put butter in a mixing bowl. It's consistency is very important. “Slightly softened” is somewhere between straight out of the refrigerator and room temperature. If the butter is too cold it will not mix smoothly with the vanilla extract. If it is too soft, the butter will start melting during the process of mixing and the consistency of your icing won’t be correct at the end. You can use margarine, but it changes the taste. Buttercream frosting made with margarine will still be better than canned frosting.

Add the vanilla. Start with 2 tsp and then add more at the end. Mix the butter and the vanilla with a mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined (about 2 minutes), scraping the butter and vanilla mixture down from the sides of the bowl as you go. You want to give the butter and vanilla a chance to meld together.

Add the powdered sugar and put a clean dishtowel around the mixer to keep the sugar from flying out. Start mixer on the lowest setting and keep on low until the butter and sugar are incorporated (about 30 seconds.). Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl and then increase the speed to medium-high and mix for another 30-45 seconds until the frosting gets light and fluffy. If the frosting is too dry or still crumbly, add 1 teaspoon of milk and mix again.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS taste your frosting. Try to determine if the taste is right and consistency correct. It may need more vanilla or more milk. You can add food coloring at this point, but make sure it gets fully incorporated (Sometimes bet to do this part by hand).

Makes enough frosting to cover a 9″ x 13″ sheet cake or a two-layer 8″ cake. If making cupcakes, makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes if applying the frosting with a knife. If swirling on the frosting with a pastry bag, it will only be able to frost 15-18 cupcakes depending on the size of the swirl.

Return to Mason-Dixon Recipes