- Hey, I'm John Kanell,
and today on Preppy Kitchen,
I'm gonna show you how to make perfect buttercream frosting
with all my tips and tricks.
So let's get started.
First off, a quick note about the butter.
I like this to be on the softer side of room temperature.
You can see I'm pressing my finger into it.
It yields fairly easily.
You don't want melted butter,
but if it's cold it's not gonna be the same.
So if it feels a bit firm to you,
just pop it in the microwave,
50% power for 10 second bursts.
That's one cup, 226 grams unsalted butter.
I'm using unsalted butter today.
You can use salted butter.
I know it's kind of the thing that most
of us have in our refrigerator.
If you are,
just don't add any more salt
or you can add it to taste if you have a salt tooth.
Chances are you've made buttercream frosting before
and it could be sublime and amazing
or a little bit disappointing.
I want to give you all the tips
and tricks to make it the right way.
Starting with what should you use
if you're using a stand mixer?
A whisk or a paddle?
Let me know the comments if you know already,
but the answer is a paddle.
Why is that?
Well, the reason is you do not want
to pump your frosting full of air.
It should be creamy, silky, and amazing.
That means that you are not gonna whisk in the air,
you're gonna beat it with a paddle.
So as a rule, go low and slow.
You can definitely make this with a hand mixer,
just use a lower power.
Creaming up my butter just to give it a nice start.
It's really room temperature
so you can see already it's like, perfect.
Buttercream frosting, also known as American buttercream,
is the simplest, easiest frosting to make.
I'm gonna show you how to make it silky smooth,
perfectly sweet,
flavored all sorts of different ways,
and store it so you can keep it for months at a time.
Mix your butter on high for about five minutes
until light and very fluffy.
My butter's all creamed up
and now we're gonna add the powdered sugar.
It's about four cups or 16 ounces, which is one package.
One of the things that can really trip you up
when you're making frosting are lumps.
So if you're ever doing any detail work
like piping buttercream roses,
trying to get something nice and smooth,
or just trying to have no clumps of powdered sugar,
which is not tasty,
you wanna sift it out and get rid of all those little rocks.
Gonna add this directly into here
and just sift it in a few batches.
Sometimes you sift it out and there's like,
ah, no lumps, no reason to,
but then sometimes you don't sift it out
and your piping tip is clogged
or your frosting is kinda lumpy and un-delicious.
So it's best practice to sift it out.
Look at that.
That was a new package and it does have little rocks in it,
which is not great.
This frosting is the easiest buttercream to make.
There's also like French buttercream,
Italian, and Swiss,
which are favorites of mine as well.
Whoa, what am I doing?
Focus.
I can't do two things at once, apparently.
I'm gonna sift this out in a couple batches
and just mix it in as I go
so it doesn't go all over the counter.
Start on low.
(mixer whirring)
One of the things you need to remember
is you just gotta be patient.
So don't try and rush it.
Don't be in a hurry.
Go low and slow.
It'll look like nothing's mixing in,
like nothing's happening,
but it'll happen and it'll be so creamy as a result
of giving it just a little bit more time at a low speed.
I give it a little mix.
I'm gonna use my spatula and just kind
of scrape the bowl down a bit.
(mixer whirring)
A lot of times when you're baking from scratch,
you might be running low on time
but that's okay because you can stage things out.
This frosting can be made months in advance
so you can have it ready for later.
All you wanna do is pop it into an airtight container
and make sure it is truly airtight.
You can even put it in a piping bag
and just seal it up,
and then you can freeze it
for like two months or it could be in your fridge
for like three to four weeks and be totally delicious.
All you wanna do is bring it back to room temperature.
So if it's in the fridge,
let it sit on the countertop for a few hours to warm up,
then give it a mix.
And if it was in the freezer,
pop it into your fridge to warm up slowly for a day or two
and then place it on your counter.
That's getting close to mixed in.
It doesn't seem like it now, but it is.
I'm gonna add the rest of the powdered sugar in.
Just give it a sift.
I see it all over the place.
Whoa, what?
Powdered sugar happened here.
Don't know what you're talking about.
If you've ever had like a regular American buttercream,
which is what this recipes also known as,
and it's like really, really sweet,
or like kind of crunchy,
someone added too much powdered sugar to it.
So there's a nice ratio of the butter,
to the sugar, to the cream.
You can make this a little bit looser
and silkier by adding more cream or milk into the recipe.
This is slowly getting worked in.
Right now I'm gonna add about a tablespoon of cream
while it's mixing on low,
and then just walk away.
Do something else.
Don't focus us on this.
It'll come together really quickly
and you are gonna be seeing a creamy,
amazing consistency.
Sometimes when you're adding your cream or milk in,
your buttercream can start to look grainy,
and that means it's broken.
It's really easy to fix, though.
You don't want broken buttercream
because it just looks grainy
and the mouth feel isn't this same.
You can fix it by adding in some more sugar
and beating it up.
So just mix, mix, mix, and add it in.
And if it's really cold and it's like not working,
you can use a hair dryer on the edge
of your bowl and just warm it up.
That should fix everything.
One of the questions I get is about the consistency
for buttercream.
So if you've ever had tons of little bubbles
and it doesn't smooth out nicely,
it's because a lot of air got whipped into there
and it is fixable.
Just mix it on low with a paddle or use a spatula
and smooth it out in the bowl to kind
of break up those bubbles and compact it down again.
You can also add in a little bit more cream
and keep mixing on low
and it should fix basically everything.
This is coming together,
but if you tasted it now,
you'd be like, "Oh, this is so sweet."
It needs something and that something is salt.
Add in half a teaspoon while mixing on low.
This will give you a really nice contrast
to all that sugar and bring out more flavor.
Salt always lets you taste things better.
I'm also gonna add in another tablespoon of cream
(mixer whirring)
as well as about a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract.
It's always a good idea to scrape the bowl down
at least once when you're making this,
'cause you'll see the bottom has a lot
of compacted butter and the top has all the sugar
and the flavorings you've added,
so you want this to be nice and consistent.
If you're wondering what you can do
to make your buttercream taste delicious,
one of the answers is use a nice butter.
If your butter is like towards the end of its life
and getting a bit stale,
you will definitely taste it in your buttercream
as one of the main flavors.
So use a nice fresh butter.
The better the quality, the better it'll taste.
(mixer whirring)
Time for one last tablespoon of cream.
(mixer whirring)
Gonna let this mix up for awhile
and you're gonna see a beautiful consistency.
One final tablespoon of cream
and then I'm gonna show you how to flavor it
and how beautiful it can pipe.
(mixer whirring)
This buttercream is a blank canvas.
You can add anything you want to it from Oreos,
to chocolate, to caramel, to raspberries.
I'm adding some of my favorites right here.
You can screenshot this or pause it and write it down.
And if you have more,
let me know in the comments below.
I have to give you one final tip on the consistency
because even though we went low and slow the whole time,
there are little air bubbles throughout.
If you wanna get the most amazing, creamy consistency,
you're gonna use your spatula and just press it out.
If you ever made macaron,
it's very similar to macaronage.
You're pressing out the air bubbles by flattening this.
This is an optional step.
You don't have to do it.
But if you're doing detail work
or if you wanna get a mirror smooth finish on your cake,
it really, really helps.
I've even made buttercream just with a spatula before,
where you make it into a paste,
and that's totally doable,
it just takes a lot of time.
There, that's looking so much better already.
Into a piping bag with an 846.
It's a nice closed star tip.
Add some of our smooth, amazing buttercream.
I'm actually gonna freeze this batch
to use later for some cupcakes,
but I have to show you how beautifully it pipes.
So take a look.
This is a scallop pattern.
So you just pipe in little waves and it's wonderful
for the top of the cake or for the base.
One more time.
This is life changing and delicious.
Mm, perfect, so good.
I hope this video helps you make
the perfect buttercream frosting.
If you have any questions,
let me know in the comments,
and if you like this video,
check out my buttercream playlist.