How to Make Buttercream Icing

Guide Note Buttercream frosting is a tasty addition to almost any cake. How to Make Buttercream Icing shows you how to make both meringue-style and eggless buttercreams.

Table of Contents

Making Buttercream Icing Tips

  1. Bring ingredients to room temperature before combining.
  2. Add salt to egg whites before beating.
  3. Flavor your icing with chocolate.
  4. Substitute other extracts for vanilla.
  5. Feel free to use food coloring in your frosting.

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Introduction

  • Buttercream icing is great for frosting almost any kind of layer or sheet cake. It's sweet, creamy and buttery, as its name suggests. You can make it with or without eggs and vary its consistency and color for different decorating purposes. Buttercream is an easy, must-know recipe for bakers.

Meringue-Style Buttercream Icing

What You'll Need

Procedure

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and heat until the temperature of the mixture reaches 240°, or what's known in candy making as the soft-ball stage.1
  2. While the sugar solution is heating, whip the egg whites and salt until the whites hold soft peaks.2
  3. When the sugar solution reaches the right temperature, slowly pour it down the side of the bowl with the egg whites while continuing to beat with the electric mixer. Stop beating when the mixture (a meringue) is nearly cool.
  4. Once the meringue is completely cool, gradually beat in the butter. Don't worry if your icing starts to look lumpy and a bit of a mess.3 Simply continue to beat until the mixture is thick and looks homogeneous.
  5. Beat in the vanilla.

Eggless Buttercream

What You'll Need

Procedure

  1. Combine butter, sugar, salt and vanilla in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
  2. Beat in milk one tablespoon at a time until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.4

Variations

(Creative Commons photo by hot_bake_sunshine)
(Creative Commons photo by hot_bake_sunshine)
  • It's easy to play around with the flavor and color of your buttercream.
  1. Add white chocolate to your buttercream.5
  2. Substitute brown sugar for white sugar.6
  3. Add coffee and chocolate for a mocha buttercream.7
  4. Make buttercream fondant to decorate cakes.8
  5. Replace the vanilla extract with mint, hazelnut, almond, raspberry or any other extract or flavoring you desire.9
  6. Make stiffer decorating buttercream to pipe flowers and other decorations.10
  7. Add food coloring to change the icing's color.

Conclusion

  • Now you should have a handle on the process for making one of the most popular types of icing. Of course, icing shouldn't be eaten alone, so you'll have to bake up something to spread it on. Check out Mahalo's pages on red velvet cake, chocolate cake, cupcakes and wedding cakes.

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References for How to Make Buttercream Icing

  1. ↑ Epicurious: White Elephant Cake with Buttercream Frosting (March 2006)  WARNING: Pop-ups
  2. ↑ FoodNetwork.com: Whip Egg Whites
  3. ↑ FoodNetwork.com: French Buttercream
  4. ↑ FoodNetwork.com: Vanilla Buttercream
  5. ↑ Epicurious: White Chocolate Layer Cake with Apricot Filling and White Chocolate Buttercream (June 2003)  WARNING: Pop-ups
  6. ↑ Epicurious: Brown Sugar Buttercream (January 2001)  WARNING: Pop-ups
  7. ↑ Epicurious: Mocha Buttercream (January 2001)  WARNING: Pop-ups
  8. ↑ Allrecipes: Rolled Buttercream Fondant
  9. ↑ Allrecipes: Mint Buttercream Frosting with Dark Chocolate Glaze
  10. ↑ MarthaStewart.com: Meringue Buttercream Frosting for Buttercream Flowers

Recipes Including Egg Whites

Eggless Recipes



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