- Hey bakers today I'm gonna show you
how to make a classic vanilla frosting.
This is the simplest frosting to make,
but it is so versatile and delicious.
I've actually used this to make my painted rose cake,
if you've seen that, my strawberry rose cake,
and my shag cake.
All these different looks
from one buttercream and it is just so simple.
Let's get started.
First off, we're gonna be creaming one cup, or 226 grams,
of unsalted, room temperature butter.
When you touch the butter, you're gonna press down
and it will yield to the touch when pressed.
Into the stand mixer without the paper
and you're gonna use a paddle attachment for this.
You don't wanna use a whisk
because it'll just whip so much air into there.
The buttercream will be like a little bit too frothy
and not really easy to pipe and decorate with.
(whirring)
And then let her run for a few minutes.
Just walk away go check out preppykitchen on Instagram,
whatever, you know.
(upbeat music)
so many delicious things on @preppykitchen.
Check it out.
(whirring)
Hey, I'm back.
Alright, so you can scrape the bowl down
and then just whip it up a little bit more.
(whirring)
Okay, that's nice.
If you are wondering why people
always say to use unsalted,
is there butter on my nose?
If you're wondering why people
always say to use unsalted butter,
it's because different brands of butter
have different amounts of salt.
So, can you use salted butter?
Okay, sure go ahead and do that.
Just probably cut the salt out of the recipe.
Just FYI.
Okay speaking of salt, put your healthy pinch there.
Also let's talk about the sugar situation.
So, I've got my scale, and it's zeroed out,
my sifter and I want to press zero.
And I want one pound of sugar for this recipe.
So, that is about a pound.
I'm gonna save a couple tablespoons but, that's it.
If you're wondering why the sifter,
do I need to do it?
Well technically no,
you can make a delicious buttercream,
doesn't have to be sifted,
but occasionally you will find lumps especially if like me,
you have an open bag of sugar here,
but sometimes some brands have lumps anyways,
they're gonna get stuck in the finer parts
of these piping tips.
It makes the buttercream totally unusable
for any sort of decorating
except for like the inside of the cake,
the crumb coat, or maybe the smooth coat.
So just go ahead and sift it out.
If you wanna use less sugar in this recipe,
that's totally fine.
It's almost to taste.
I thought that a one to one ratio,
like one cup one pound works pretty well.
You can add more sugar
and your buttercream will be stiffer
and you can add less sugar cream
and it will be more buttery.
Okay, snowing over here.
I'm going to be mixing this up on low.
Gotta get a tea towel and cover this up.
It's gonna get messy.
Little babushka for my mixer,
and mix it up on low for a few seconds, maybe 30 seconds,
gradually increased the speed.
(whirring)
Okay, so, (coughs) sugar in my mouth.
This is pretty like crumbly right now.
You'll find that happens a lot of the time
when you're making a smaller batch of buttercream.
Things aren't coming together as quickly as you'd like,
just add some liquid in.
So here's a tablespoon of vanilla extract
and that will really help get things started.
(whirring)
Okay, this is on its way to looking amazing.
Nice and creamy,
but I wanna talk to you about the vanilla really quickly.
It's important to use a high quality nice vanilla
when you're making a vanilla buttercream
if you want it to be the best it can be.
Nielsen Massey, it's like a nicer brand.
Rodelle is a nicer brand.
There are lots of other ones too.
You can go organic if you want too,
or you can also use vanilla bean paste.
I shouldn't have opened that
and turned it upside down.
Vanilla bean paste.
Anyways, vanilla bean extract is like,
the vanilla beans are soaked and, this is in bourbon.
You're tasting a lot of like bourbon and alcohol.
That's just the way it works.
Vanilla bean paste doesn't have alcohol
and here it has all those vanilla beans are still in there.
So it's more of like a sugary paste.
And the nice thing is that when you mix it in,
you see all the flecks of vanilla.
It kind of elevates the dish.
Back to this I'm going to be adding in
the rest of the sugar now.
So as promised i reserved about a couple tablespoons.
That brings me to a full pound and then sift it out.
If you try and do this in one go,
it'll be really really messy.
I promise.
I don't know if you can see,
but there's like a lot of lumps in here mm hmm.
That's because that bag was open.
So scrape the bowl down.
We're gonna go back to mixing, we're almost done.
American buttercream is very very quick to make.
(whirring)
We're gonna add in a tablespoon of heavy cream at a time,
so, just add your tablespoon in,
let it mix, see what the consistency is like.
You might wanna add more
or less depending on what you're doing with the buttercream.
(whirring)
(soft beats)
Look at that, tastes good. (laughs)
(whirring)
I will let this whip for a minute.
Just take it on to medium and walk away, come back.
(whirring)
Okay, I'm back.
So I don't know if you can tell
but this buttercream is pretty white now,
the more you whip it,
you're incorporating air into that buttercream
and it lightens the color up
because the butter you're using is probably yellow.
If you're making American buttercream
and you want it to be as white as possible,
choose the lightest color butter possible,
which often means like a cheaper butter,
nice vanilla but a cheap butter.
Because the more expensive butters
just tend to have more of that yellow color,
cows have been grazing, eating the grass,
living their happy lives, you don't want that butter.
That's good for savory dishes
and things that don't have to be really pale in color.
But if color is of the utmost concern to you,
and you're very upset by this off white situation happening.
Go ahead and make a batch of Italian
or Swiss meringue buttercream.
You can click up here for my Italian buttercream.
It is really really nice, structurally sound,
and pipes beautifully
and you can click up here for my Swiss meringue buttercream.
It is so silky,
perfect for decorating, and it is not too sweet.
Much less sweet
than American buttercream generally speaking,
Okay, this is done but let's give it a taste test
and see if we need to add more salt or not.
That's nice,
a little salt will balance it out,
pours a tablespoon of salt into his hand.(laughs)
I don't need all that salt, no, just a little bit.
So here, a little sprinkle, a little blessing of salt.
see where that goes.
(whirring)
I'm actually gonna add another teaspoon of vanilla in.
(whirring)
Fresh spoon for tasting and let's see what it's like.
Hmm, much better.
Transferring my buttercream to a piping bag
fitted with my favorite 869 tip, large open star,
so versatile, highly recommend it, my favorite literally.
I whipped up a batch of my favorite vanilla cupcakes.
So nice and moist.
Look at that, so fluffy.
You can click up here for that recipe if you'd like.
And I baked them in just regular white papers,
but, for you I will be plopping them
into some decorative cupcake papers.
And let's just pipe and turn
right-io, that's nice.
Let's be real here.
I let my buttercream sit out for just a few minutes
but when I piped it, it looked like this, horrible.
Here's what I didn't like,
the tip, it looks a little bit imperfect
so, it tastes fine,
but if that ever happens to you,
if you're like me, and you want things to look just right,
what you're gonna do is
put the butter cream back in the bowl,
mix it on low, the lowest setting
and then add in like a little bit of cream at a time
until it becomes glossy and smoother.
Take two.
(fast pace whirring)
So now, once again, pop that in there.
Get to pipin',
pipe and swirl, turn.
There we go.
So much better.
Do you see how much better this is than this?
It's better, just trust me okay.
(soft beats)
Gorgeous. (soft beats)
If you wanted to make these vanilla cupcakes,
click over here for that vanilla cupcake recipe.
So delicious.
And if you want my perfect,
perfect vanilla cake recipe,
click up over here it is gonna be the vanilla cake
to make all of your dreams come true.
All right, thanks so much for watching.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments below.
And don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe.