Cooking For Engineers

[AnMochi]

Hi.

Have you tried substituting some shortening for part of the butter? You might notice the difference in taste but it is said to be more stable.

Perhaps you should consider fondant instead of buttercream. You didn't mention the temperature of your room, but over seven hours in a warm room, and there may be food poisoning concerns if it is very warm there and the buttercream made with egg has been out for so long.

Hope this helps.

anMochi

[Hermeswiss]

Tantalizingly, the ingredients list appears to be missing (or does not display) from pdx cook's post on May 20, 2006.

Any chance of re-posting it?

This is a great website and Michael Chu's buttercream recipe has worked wonderfully for me in Australia. Thanks!

[Michael Chu]

re: Missing ingredients

I've had some trouble with the database migration. I'll see if I can fix this without messing everything up.

[mdgirl]

I am not a pastry chef however I have been baking forever! As far as I know there are several types of buttercream.

American - Usually powdered sugar with flavoring and butter
Swiss- Heated eggwhites and sugar beaten with room temp unsalted butter
French-Egg yolks beaten till lemon colored and thick; (soft ball stage) sugar syrup is added then chunks of butter beaten in
Italian- Whipped eggwhites ; sugar syrup that has been heated to soft ball stage is added then butter

I personally love the swiss meringue however I use the french one for my sans rival layer cakes.

[cookie]

I enjoy this blog very much, well done Michael!

I'm just wondering if it's just me or has anyone experience the following:

I've made the frosting with the milk and flour cooked mixture and I used all butter. While it tasted good on the same day.........the next day, I could taste the flour and it tasted sort of odd like....no butter or vanilla taste at all.

I've also tried another recipe that uses corn flour added to warm milk to form a paste and then beat into creamed butter/sugar and I piped flowers with star tip. Frosting tasted good....but after a few hours, it started weeping. The flowers are still defined and held up well at this point, the frosting still taste good, soft and creamy but weeping. I used 1 ply of tissue paper to soak up the liquid trying hard not to disturb the flowers.

The decorated cake looks ok and taste good with the frosting soft and creamy but the weeping is just annoying, any comments or help?!?!

cookie

[Sae]

Just to clarify to us non-culinary grads, what do the 'softball' and 'ribbon' stages pretain to as stated in the other post below?
Thanks!


On May 10, 2006 at 03:10 PM, McDee said...
I'm in a pastry course at culinary school now (just got home from my pastry mid-term) and our most commonly used buttercream is a whole egg mixture like above except:

sugar and water (4:1) are brought to soft ball stage
whole eggs are whipped to ribbon stage
sugar mixture is drizzled into the eggs (down the side of the bowl while mixer is running) which cooks the eggs
mixture is kept moving while it cools (we've been using an ice-bath under the 20qt mixer to cool it more quickly)
chunked butter is added

Proceed as above.

Having hated cake frostings my whole life, I can honestly say that I enjoy this frosting. It's not too sweet, nor too buttery

[Michael Chu]

[Guest]

I am a cake decorator instructor with no culinary degree. I have tried many buttercream icings. I tried the pro's icing and basically the taste and texture depends on personal taste and the design you wish to make in your cake. I will try your recipe Michael and see if it can be use for complicated upright decorations.But here's my 2 cents, when you want to ice a cake, make the icing that day you frost it and not do it in advance cuz trying to return from a cold icing to the consistency you want can be disastrous. Ice your cake, decorate it and enjoy it! Has anyone tried Rich's buttercream icing? it taste like homemade and great for decorating..but I still prefer my own homemade recipe.

[ldel]

I have been looking all kinds of buttercream recipes and seems not ot them worked for me but I tried this one today and is AWESOME! Just finished my cake, thanks for the recipe.

[Tasquah]

Michael thanks for this great page. I learned allot about buttercream i always wanted to know.
A friend of mine gave me a recipe last week for a Red Velvet cake that called for a cooked frosting . I joked with her about a gravy frosting because I had never heard of frosting with flour in it before. Anyhow here it is just like i got it.

Cooked Frosting
1 cup milk
1/3 all-purpose flour
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
milk or cream

Frosting: In a saucepan, whisk together the 1/3 cup flour and milk and cook, stirring, until thickened; cool in the refrigerator. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla with mixer. Add flour and milk mixture a little at a time (make ahead of cake so that it has plenty of time to cool). Beat well, adding milk or cream as needed. Frost layers, sides, and top of cake.

[Sean]

This recipe sounds really good, but I am totally ignorant about baking and cooking in general, so it seems very difficult to me. Everyone seems to hate most grocery store cake buttercream icing, but it's the only kind I've ever had and I've always liked it. I've tried to make frosting at home a few times with powdered sugar and butter, but it's always horrible. Like someone else said it's ok for sugar cookies because it hardens after a while. That is NOT the kind of icing I'm looking for. Can anyone give me a recipe that's just real basic and simple and is like grocery store buttercream?

Thank You.

[Regina]

Thanks a bunch Michael for sharing this recipe. I made it just now with an electric mixer according to your instructions and it looks just right, just the way I want it. I have been unsuccessful with the confectioners' sugar recipe which is usually gritty and your recipe is the silky texture I have been trying to obtain for many (I mean MANY) years!

[erika]

will a regular mixer work well instead of a flat beater...and does it matter whether it is butter or margerine? i would like to try this recipe out but i don't know if i have the right equipment and items....thanks

[Michael Chu]

[mrs_hittle]

The main differences between butter and margarine (other than taste) are the water content and type of fat. Margarine is a vegetable oil emulsion and includes water. Butter is made from heavy cream churned to a semi-solid state and does not typically contain water. (i would be very suspicious of any that did!) Thus, they have different effects on the recipe. If you must use margarine in baking, make sure it is at least 80% fat. Michael is right concerning trans fats in margarine. Because of the type of fat used, margarine must be partially hydrogenated in order to solidify. This is why tub margarine is softer and lower in trans fats than stick margarine.

Margarine is generally not recommended for baking, although one can acquire satisfactory results with it depending on one's expectations. When making candy, only butter will work properly; margarine separates at high temperatures.

i'm not a professional chef or a dietician, but i do a LOT of baking and am highly reputed among our circle of acquaintances. :-)