The Ultimate American Buttercream recipe
Every day I’m asked what style of buttercream we use in the bakery. “Is it Swiss Meringue?” Is usually the question, but I am here to report it is most certainly not.
This year we’ve not just doubled or even tripled our cake production, we have increased it ten fold! And with so many cakes being made in the bakery each week, we’ve learned a lot, very quickly, about buttercream.
If you ask me, American buttercream is the best kind of buttercream. I know some cake decorators will disagree - that is fine - but in my bakery we now exclusively use American style buttercream, which we have managed to get down to a fine art.
There are only three ingredients to make this buttercream.
Butter - use a high fat quality butter at room temperature, always unsalted.
Icing sugar - always sift your icing sugar before you incorporate it into buttercream, unless you want clumps of icing sugar to ruin your day.
Vanilla extract - to give your buttercream a moreish taste.
Before I jump in to the recipe, it’s important to make note of the fact that this recipe is not unique. Bakers everywhere use American buttercream, but why are the results so different?
Quite often in baking we think the ingredients of the recipe are where you will find the secrets. Ever heard the phrase ‘secret ingredient’? This implies that if you can just find out what ingredients are used in a recipe, you will strike gold.
But this couldn’t be any further from the truth.
It is, in fact, the method of the recipe that is most important to understand.
And when it comes to American buttercream, following the method properly will make your buttercream the best it has ever been.
American Buttercream
ingredients:
500g unsalted butter, room temp
250g icing sugar, sifted
splash vanilla extract
method:
First, cube your butter into small 1.5cm squares. Then place them in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on high for at least 5-7 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl twice every few minutes.
Once the butter is glossy and a lighter colour, change the speed of your mixer to the lowest setting and add 1/2 cup of icing sugar at a time, until fully incorporated.
Turn the mixer back on to high and continue to beat the buttercream until it is glossy - around 5 minutes.
Finally, turn the mixer on to low and add a splash of vanilla. Mix until incorporated.
et voila!