Homemade Butter Cream Frosting – Cake Decorating Series

Butter cream frosting is an important part of cake decorating. Fortunately it is quite easy to make once you learn how. It is all about the consistency. Make your frosting too stiff and you won’t be able to spread it. Make your frosting too runny and it could cause problems if you want to add food-coloring.

For the red-velvet cake (view the cake recipe here) that we have been making in this cake decorating series, we are using a layer of butter cream frosting between the layers of cake and a layer to help stick the fondant in place. But butter cream can be used for much much more. Put some on the top of cupcakes, or decorate a cake without fondant. Add different flavoring, like cocoa or coffee, or try adding some food coloring for a different look. It really is quite versatile and delicious.

Before I continue on with this recipe, I just want to make a special note: There are no substitutions for real butter. Yes, you can use margarine or buttery flavoured Becel and the recipe will work and taste great. You could even use shortening and artificial butter flavouring, which will make your frosting smell divine… just like fresh buttery popcorn at the movie theatre, but, the flavor and texture will not be there.

Moral to this story: if you want or need to use a substitution for the butter in this recipe; call it frosting not butter cream.

Directions:

Yield: 3 cups

1. Put softened butter and icing sugar in a large bowl. Add vanilla and 1 tbsp of the milk.
2. Blend on slow – medium speed of your mixer. (Careful, because icing sugar flies all over the place if you start out to fast….messy, messy, messy).
3. Add the remainder of the milk 1 teaspoon at a time until you get a consistency that works for you. Don`t worry if you make it too thin or runny… you can always add more icing sugar.

Candra’s Notes

This is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Just keep a couple things in mind. Make sure the butter is room temperature and add the milk a bit at a time until you get the consistency that works for you.

If you’d like to make chocolate butter cream, just add 3/4 cup of sifted cocoa with the icing sugar and increase the milk to an additional 1-2 tbsp. For chocolate mocha frosting, just substitute the additional milk with strongly brewed coffee.

Enjoy and have fun!