The BEST Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe - Cooking Classy (2024)

FAQs

What kind of buttercream do professionals use? ›

Swiss meringue buttercream is probably the most standard buttercream for pastry professionals. It is incredibly smooth, making it an extremely popular choice for icing cakes. Compared to American buttercream, it has a much stronger butter flavor, but is considerably less sweet.

Most commercial bakeries are using a buttercream made with shortening rather than butter, because it is more stable, especially if it gets warm.

1. Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This is the Queen of Frosting. Imagine the melt-in-mouth texture of ice cream, just at room temperature.

Some people prefer the extra moistness that buttercream provides and preserves in a cake, others prefer ganache for it is less sweet and, well, who can argue with more chocolate? Whatever you decide to go with, do practice at least once before deciding on whether you will use buttercream or ganache for a big occasion.

Fondant icing is a sugar paste and a classic choice for decorating cakes because it provides a smooth and professional look. There are three types of fondant: rolled fondant, marshmallow fondant, and poured fondant. They are all used for coating sponges and pastries but will provide slightly different results.

The best way to distinguish frosting from buttercream is through the ingredients. While both contain powdered sugar, fat, flavouring and sometimes milk or water, frosting does not contain any butter whatsoever. Instead, frosting is usually made with shortening or cream cheese.

Whip the frosting with half a block of cream cheese and an extra cup of powdered sugar and a few drops of the appropriate flavoring extract. If you're using chocolate, add cocoa powder. If you want a richer buttery flavor add a few tablespoons of butter as well.

It tastes real because it uses ingredients that we like. Grocery store buttercream isnt for flavor, it's so that it stays shelf stable. They use vegetable shortening, which has almost no taste and leaves a waxy aftertaste. Butter and eggs go bad after a while, not refrigerated especially, so they leave them out.

French buttercream is a gorgeously smooth, velvety, rich buttercream. Because it's made with an egg-yolk foam (i.e., pâte à bombe), it naturally has a bright yellow color and a higher fat content than Swiss or Italian buttercream, which are both made with egg whites.

As far as buttercream options go, MacIsaac says Swiss and Italian meringue are the two most delicious options. "Both Italian and Swiss are made using meringue, just with slightly different techniques—resulting in a light, fluffy, exceptionally smooth, and less-sweet buttercream," she explains.

What is the hardest buttercream to make? ›

Italian Meringue Buttercream is the most difficult buttercream to make. If you are familiar with Italian meringue, you'll understand that it involves boiling sugar and then whisking egg whites into this piping hot syrup. Because of the high temperatures involved, we only recommend it to the more advanced cake artists.

Swiss meringue buttercream frosting is very similar to Italian meringue buttercream in that they both use egg whites. Swiss is preferred by many bakers because it doesn't use the hot sugar syrup and the egg whites are heated to 160 F in a double boiler to remove any salmonella risk.

Most modern wedding cake makers will use ganache instead of buttercream underneath fondant to get perfectly sharp edges, as well as using it for fillings on chocolatey flavours, but on its own, it makes a really brilliant cake covering too.

Ganache: Add a small amount of cooled (but not chilled) chocolate ganache to the buttercream. This magic combo of heavy cream + melted chocolate lends intense fudgy richness to the American buttercream texture and a huge dose of chocolate flavor.

To make the frosting extra smooth, stir it by hand with a rubber spatula for a minute or two right before you use it. It's an arm workout, but it's worth it! Push the frosting back and forth and spread it around the side of the bowl. This will push out any extra air and make it easier to smooth onto cakes or pipe with.

These shelf-stable frostings are vegetable shortening and sugar with some artificial flavoring. Yum. If you haven't been spoiled by homemade buttercream frosting, they will do in a pinch. Take Note: One tub is never enough to cover a standard eight or nine-inch two-layer cake though, so grab two.

SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM

SM buttercream is arguably the best frosting in terms of cake decorating because it is the easiest way to get those smooth clean lines. Cons – It is SUPER annoying to make. You have to have time and patience for this one (which I don't usually have either).

As far as buttercream options go, MacIsaac says Swiss and Italian meringue are the two most delicious options. "Both Italian and Swiss are made using meringue, just with slightly different techniques—resulting in a light, fluffy, exceptionally smooth, and less-sweet buttercream," she explains.

Italian buttercream is meringue-based and very light, creamy, and less sweet than American buttercream. American buttercream is sweeter but has the advantage of being quick, easy to make, and sturdy.