Buttercream!!!

  As a cake decorator one of the biggest headaches is which icing to match with the cake.

Buttercream, Whipped Cream, Cream Cheese, Fondant, Glaze, or just simply to dust powder sugar on a cake.  The list doesn’t stop there, but these are the most used icings asked for when ordering a cake. My favorite is Buttercream…it’s easy to make, spreads easy if you add more mike or cream, hardens with a little more powder sugar. You can never mess it up …promise.:)

Buttercream Recipe

½  cup unsalted butter

½  cup shortening  *(yuck….throw this out and use butter…I know…butter has gone up in price  but deal with it)

4 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk….(I use more if I need to spread it on a cake…makes it smoother and really doesn’t hurt the flavor…if anything it cuts the sweet taste that people don’t like about the Buttercream.)

One of Natalie's Senior Project
She did a great job!!

Now today I had Natalie over working on her Senior project and she was turning her nose up to my blah boring Buttercream…what does she know…well she was right…I dug around in my computer recipes…you know the “one day I will try” list (Pinterest is my enemy adding to this list) and found Maple Icing.  Great!!… a Buttercream with more sugar…right....Wrong.  You want something so tasty, smells so good, looks great…this is it!  Are you ready for the recipe….

Change the Vanilla extract for Maple extract…BAM!!  THAT IS IT!! Your house will smell like you cooked all day. We will be putting our house up on the Market soon… I’m making icing just to make my house smell great…Have people coming over pop it out of the fridge and pop into the microwave for 5 seconds and let it sit on the table…they will think you slaved all day…and it taste great on Chocolate cake. Try it out and let me know if I’m really losing my mind or if you think it’s great to.

            This will be for another blog but I’m afraid that as great as Maple Buttercream icing is…it doesn’t come close to my Mocha Java Icing…still by far my #1 icing…but Maple Buttercream is in the top 5….

            I know as you read this blog I have capitalized Buttercream, but in my life it is the base that all decorating starts with after the cake. It is the glue that holds it all together. I ALWAYS have it in my bag when taking a cake to a customer. True story…took a beautiful cake to a customer….she loved the cake…she went to move it on the table and her finger went into the cake and left a hole in the side. I grabbed my icing and spatula that I had on me and squirted the icing into the hole and smoothed it out…you would never have guessed she even touched the cake….but I’m sure the person who got that piece of cake will think twice about eating my cake!

            So go try that recipe that you have been wanting to try but have not had the time, and let me know how it turns out!!