American buttercream

Take 2

Recipe

I re-made American buttercream for my mint brownie squares.

How it turned out

It was still sweet, but I think that's just the nature of the beast. It was less grainy and fluffier than the first time I made it.

What I learned

Whip the butter. The first time I made American buttercream, I used a hand mixer with the beater attachments. I also probably only beat it for about 1 minute. This time, I used the whisk attachment to whip the butter for about 5 minutes. It made it a lot lighter.

Okay in a pinch. It didn't take long at all to make the American buttercream. So, if I'm short on time, I can see myself subbing this in for a frosting. However, I think my go-to will still be a Swiss meringue buttercream - and I'm willing to spend the extra time on it.

---

Recipe

Favourite vanilla buttercream frosting - Sally's baking addiction

How it turned out

I mainly tried my hand at this because I had an extra layer of chocolate cake from my black forest cake in the freezer. So I wanted to attempt making buttercream but also decorating using buttercream.

I think it turned out how American buttercream is supposed to turn out - very sweet and very rich. However, I don't particularly like very sweet icing. So though it was indeed buttercream, it wasn't something I enjoyed eating very much.

Given this was my first real attempt at decorating a cake, the piping details were inconsistent. I can definitely use more practice with that.

What I learned

American buttercream is very sweet. Like, a bit sickeningly so. I think I'll need to give European buttercream a go before I write-off this frosting all together.

Temperature matters. For the decoration, I learned that the crumb coat is naturally messy and that's okay. However, you can mitigate some of the mess by starting with a cold cake. And after the crumb coat is applied, popping the cake in the fridge to harden makes the top layer of frosting much easier to apply.

Think about colour. My initial plan was to make white frosting and decorate with colourful sprinkles. However, to offset the sugary taste, I added more vanilla extract (brown) which turned the frosting into an uninspiring shade of beige. I pivoted on the plan and added some red food colouring to bring it back to life. Next time I'll be sure to consider how the ingredients impact the colour of the frosting.