5 Steps To Perfect Frosting

August 20, 2013

So you just pulled a glorious cake out of the oven for your husband’s birthday and all you need to do now is doll it up it with the perfect buttercream frosting. Piece of cake! Right? If you’ve struggled with whipping up a fluffy icing before, have no fear because today’s the day that you learn how easy it is to create the creamiest, sexiest buttercream in the world! (Buttercream, sexy? Yeah. It is.) 5 Steps To Perfect Frosting

1. Use unsalted butter. Read the butter packages carefully because you don’t want to mess this up—unless you’re planning on making a potato chip cake or something. Hmmm… that’s an idea…
2. Sift or whisk your powdered sugar until your arm gets tired. Put some muscle into that, sugah! The key to perfectly smooth frosting is removing the lumps from the sugar beforehand. Once it’s in the bowl, it’s hard to get out. That’s what she said.
3. Cream the butter FIRST. Don’t make the mistake Cass made one day while we were making the frosting for her girl’s 5^th birthday cupcakes. As I looked over at what she was doing I caught her putting the butter and sugar in the bowl at the same time. If you catch your best friend doing this you must make sure she dumps out the sugar that’s covering the butter in the bowl before turning the mixer on. One day she’ll return the favor and save your life too.
4. After the butter is creamed to a smooth consistency, slowly add the powdered sugar. Slowly. You do not want to look like I did that one day (see below). And for goodness gracious, taste the frosting as you go along. The recipe writer may have had a much graver sweet tooth than you do so you might want to go lighter on the sugar. You can always add more sugar but you can’t take sugar out.
5. Whip the frosting longer than you’re comfortable whipping it. This I believe is the most important step. Once all the ingredients are in the bowl a lot of people tend to only whip the frosting till everything is just incorporated—about a minute. The key to that really light fluffy consistency though is to let the frosting whip for about 4-5 minutes. Sometimes I let it go as long as 7 minutes (risky!). As long as you make sure that your mixer doesn’t overheat and melt the frosting, you’re good to go.

And there you have my 5 steps to perfect frosting! For all my frosting and baking tips and tricks you can turn to pages 11-15 in The Dollop Book of Frosting: Sweet and Savory Icings, Spreads, Meringues, and Ganaches for Dessert and Beyond. [caption id="attachment_1330" align="aligncenter" width="300"] What will happen if you don't follow these 5 steps.[/caption] What's been your biggest frosting disaster? 

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