Buttercream - sinfully good filling for cakes and layer cakes

Name: Buttercream - sinfully good filling for cakes and layer cakes
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min

January 16, 2024

Prep 5 min Total 20 min

Buttercream … about as healthy as it looks … © kvalifood.com

Recipe with video — Buttercream can be an excellent filling when made properly. It can also be spread on the outside of cakes and hold a layer of marzipan. Sandwiched between two oatmeal cookies you have a classic patisserie treat. Between chocolate sponge layers and you have a wonderful layer cake. The problem is that the recipes typically found online give you a mediocre buttercream. So here is a proper recipe.

Ingredients

Yields 1 large portion

Small portion

50 ml water
100 g sugar
1 egg yolk
125 g butter
1 tsp vanilla sugar (optional)

Large portion

100 ml water
200 g sugar
1 egg yolk
250 g butter
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (optional)

Directions

Take the butter out well in advance and let it sit at room temperature until soft.

Put the sugar and water in a saucepan.

Bring to a boil and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and let it cool until it is cooler than “lukewarm” — ideally room temperature.

Beat the butter and egg yolk together in a bowl.

Slowly pour in the syrup while beating vigorously. Beat until you have a smooth, uniform cream.

Notes

The large portion is for large cakes such as chocolate layer cakes, birthday cakes and the like.

The small portion is for oatmeal cookies, French waffles, honey cakes and so on.

For the vanilla sugar, you can also use the seeds from a vanilla pod instead. I use my homemade vanilla sugar in the video.

The typical recipe you see online calls for 100 g icing sugar beaten together with 100 g butter. The problem with that is that the icing sugar never fully dissolves, so you end up with gritty bits of sugar in the cream. Not good.

If you are using a hand mixer or whisk, it is easiest to beat the egg and butter together when the butter is soft. With a stand mixer it matters less — just beat until it comes together.

In the video I beat by hand, and the result is a yellow, heavy buttercream. With a machine you can get it almost white and fluffy.

If you add the syrup when it is too hot, or pour it in too quickly, you risk ending up with a very thin cream of melted butter. Just keep beating until it thickens again. You can also put it in the fridge briefly and then continue beating. As the cream cools it will thicken.

If you find it tastes too strongly of butter, you can mix the buttercream with an equal amount of pastry cream. This gives a lighter version that is not quite as sweet and rich.