Can Buttercream Icing be Frozen?
Buttercream
is actually quite stable and can be frozen if you make too much for
whatever cake project you have on the go. You can also keep buttercream
in the refrigerator for up to 4-5 days. Just make sure that you don’t
store your icing near any onions or other pungent ingredients because
buttercream can pick up strong flavors. If you freeze your extra
buttercream, store it in a sealed container for up to 3 months.
Take the icing out and thaw it overnight in the
fridge before stirring it or beating it fluffy with hand beaters. You
can also freeze piped buttercream flowers as well. Simply freeze them on
a baking sheet first and then transfer the blossoms to a container, in
one layer and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
How do I get Black Buttercream?
Black and red buttercream often get criticism because these colors either taste horrible because you need so much color to get a true shade or can bleed
into other design elements and the white base icing for the same
reason. Black buttercream can be created using a lovely dark chocolate
buttercream as a base so that you don’t have to use copious amounts of
black gel color to get the right hue. This icing will taste delicious as
well. The only time chocolate might not be appropriate is if you are
using a lot of black icing accents on a cake flavor that does not
combine well with this flavor.
How Can I get Really Creamy Smooth Buttercream?
Most
buttercream recipes are relatively simple to create and have limited
ingredients, so it would seem like creating a lovely fluffy finish would
be easy.
One of the best ways to create smooth creamy
icing is to make sure your butter is at room temperature and you beat
the butter until it is very fluffy before adding any other ingredients.
Sifting the powdered sugar into the butter also ensures that there are
no lumps in the finished product. Icing sugar can be quite lumpy
depending on how long it has been in the bag and if it has ever been
exposed to moisture.
Adding the icing sugar in increments instead of
dumping the whole amount into the butter can also allow you to control
both the texture of the icing and sweetness.
Why is my White Chocolate Buttercream Lumpy?
Adding
melted chocolate to finished buttercream can be tricky, especially if
the chocolate is too hot still or the buttercream is too cold. Both have
to be close to the same temperature, close to room temperature. You
need to keep beating the buttercream after adding chocolate so that the chocolate is evenly distributed and it does not have a chance to harden creating little specks.
By Michelle Anderson
Cake Decorating Expert
