what happens if you substitute heavy cream in place of milk, when making buttercream? Can you do that??? Will it make it stiffer and easier to decorate with??

I use heavy cream in my frosting and it's great! It pipes beautifully, very sharp, clean decorations. It tastes great too. You do need a little more cream than milk, but not much. How much depends on how stiff you want it to be.

You can also freeze any leftovers and it still tastes great. I hate it when I have to use something else.

So yes, you can substitute cream for milk.

Michele

I use heavy cream in my frosting all the time. It gives the frosting a really nice flavor. It's very easy to use for decorating too.

HTH

Diane

This good to know, think I'll try it next time! Thanx for the tip.

how much more cream do you need when using it - if the recipes calls for 2 tablespoons of milk - should you use 3?

I use half and half.

. . . .as a side note, I also substitute heavy (whipping) cream when making instand puddings and it is terrific - it comes out like a mousse.

jelligirl, Half and Half is half cream and half whole milk. It's usually next to the cream in the dairy isle.

moralna, if you are using 2 Tbsp. of milk, then 1-2 Tbsp. extra of cream should do the trick.

My frosting recipe calls for 1/3 cup of cream. You can see the recipe on my website: www.thesugarfix.com. On the main page is a paragraph about my cookbook and a few recipes that are in the book.

Michele

Sugarflowers - your work is beautiful!!!!

Thank you, moralna. I especially like your Santa cake. The cake board is a really nice touch.

Michele

Sugarflowers - you are my HERO!!! Beautiful work!!! Thanks for the recipe - I'm going to try it this w/e.

Sugarflowers has been my HERO for some time. She is just as great in person as on CC. Her heart is as big. Happy Holidays.

There's a wonderful bc recipe using heavy cream on the baking911.com website, its called Tami's buttercream. I use it all the time and everyone loves it.

I love Tami's buttercream, its smooth and creamy and not too sweet, for a full batch I usually use 1 cup of heavy cream and if you want it to crust you must add meringue powder, I usually add 2-3 tbsp for the full batch. I also decorate with it but use less cream. Most people really like it. I'm going to try to add the link here, but if it doesn't work just go directly to the website, click recipes, icings, Tami's butter cream.

http://www.baking911.com/asksarahbb/index.php?showtopic=864

Okay, I tried this today, substituted half-n-half for the water in my bc. The flavor was great! BUT it came out closer to whipped cream, light and airy more than I would have liked, and was too something - not sure what exactly but it wouldn't smooth right and left air pockets that would show up when I smoothed it and it wouldn't crust hardly at all, just a little after 45 minutes. No idea why, but it did not work for me. I'd suggest trying it on a practice before using on a customer cake.