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Butter cream is my favourite frosting for cake decorating, but to be successful with it, you need to know these five things about it
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Let's start with the right temperature to work with butter cream. Butter cream is made with, of course, butter
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And just like butter, it will melt in the heat and get rock hard when it's really cold
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If it's hot in the room where you're making your cake, you'll struggle with cake sweat, which are these droplets of condensation on the frost
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and you might see colours running down the cake. For decorating techniques that need the buttercream to set
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like stenciling, when you move the cake from the fridge to a warm room
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the buttercream won't stay firm for long enough to use stencils without melting the butter cream
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Cold temperatures have their own set of problems. I attempted to frost this cake when there was a freeze where I live, and look what happens
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Although the cake isn't cold, and the butter cream was at room temperature when I made it the day before
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the cold weather has chilled the buttercream and I'm in an especially cold part of the room by a big window so the buttercream gets colder and colder as I work and by the time I get to the top of the cake the buttercream has chilled so much that it's started to set
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You can see the stiff texture up here compared to the softness of buttercream at room temperature on this cake over here on the right So what the right temperature Room temperature is around 72 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees Celsius and that ideal
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Okay, coloring butter cream. There are three things to watch out for here
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First, the consistency of the butter cream. The more color you add, the runnier it will become
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especially if you're using liquid colors rather than gel colors. So if you know you're going to add a lot of colour, consider leaving out the milk or cream in the buttercream recipe and waiting until after you've added the colour, so that you can add less than normal if necessary
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The second thing to keep in mind is that colours develop and darken with time. So if you're aiming for a certain shade, like a pale peach, consider mixing the colour a little bit lighter than you want it to be, and after a few hours it will be significantly darker
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The third thing to beware of is the flavour of food colours
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The more you add, the more you'll notice it. Typically a bitter taste
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To prevent it, don't add more than a small squirt of gel to a bowl of buttercream
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and then darken it with this method. Scoop out a third of the buttercream
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microwave it for 10 seconds and mix it back in. The colour will get darker in the microwave and as you mix the heated slightly melted buttercream back into the rest of the batch it will get darker and you see the consistency transform into absolute perfection as a
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bonus side effect. Let's talk about how to smooth buttercream frosting on a cake. Here are my best
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tips. Make sure the buttercream is a nice loose consistency that's easy to stir and leave soft
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peaks. As you spread it around the top of the cake, spread diagonally upwards
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to make a lip or wall around the top of the cake, which will give you sharp edges later
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instead of drooping or domed tops. Before you scrape around the cake with a cake comb
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push the base of the cake comb down on the cakeboard to line the edge up straight against the cake
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to make straight sides on your cake. Pull long spins on the turntable
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to prevent dents in the frosting caused by shorter jerky movements of the turntable
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Finally, for the top edge, swipe sideways with your offset spatula, without pushing down
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Only sideways, otherwise you'll create a bulge in the frosting around the top of the sides of the cake
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For piping with buttercream, the consistency should be fairly stiff so that the details will hold their shape
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but you don want the buttercream to be too stiff or it will split around the edge of the piping Also stiff butter cream is difficult to push out through the piping tip so it will really strain your wrist as you pipe and that strain won give you smooth piping
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because the buttercream won't come out evenly. Top tip, if the buttercream gets runnier as you pipe
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it's warming up from the warmth of your hands, so put the bag in the freezer for one minute
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and it will stiffen up for neater piping. How do you store buttercream
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Well, first of all, it should always be covered, so it's airtight and doesn't dry out and crust
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You can keep it in a bowl covered with plastic wrap or a lid or put it in a USAW or in a Ziploc or sandwich bag
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How long can you store buttercream? At room temperature for two to three days, because the high ratio of sugar to dairy preserves the dairy
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Butter cream can be refrigerated for two weeks or stored in the freezer for two months
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Take it out of the fridge or freezer the night before you're going to use it
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so that it has time to warm up to room temperature. I hope these tips have been useful and that you're excited to decorate your next cake
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For hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs, visit my cake school on British Girlbakes.com
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You'll find online courses and also memberships to take your cake decorating to the next level
