Dear All,

Let me share my frustration with you and ask for your valuable advise.

I am an amateur and a beginner in cake making and decoration. I have a huge problem and I need every tiny help I can get.

Ever since I started decorating I used whipping cream, as buttercream in my country just tastes like butter and No on likes it on their cake.

The problem as I am sure you already know, it is almost impossibile to make roses with wipping cream as it doesn't hold the shape. So I just thought, maybe I can make a butter cream that tasts well and just kick up the flavor up to make the butter flavor disappear, and guess what I did, and it worked. the taste is reasonable ok.

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTT, in my country we don't have " Crisco, Shortening, or margarine". The only types of fat other than oil we have in my country is butter and ghee, that's IT!!!!!

So, when I tried to make a butter cream, It was first tasty, just used butter, orange and vanilla extract, lemon and sugar. it tasted well, i put it in the refrigerator to use it the following day on my cake that was going to be covered with fondant. I took it from the refrigerator the following morning, but it turned really stiff, and the taste returned to very much butter and WHAT IS WORST THAN ALL, the sugar crystallized!!!!!! I still used it as the cake will be covered with fondant, but it doesnt taste well and it doesnt not help AT ALL in practicing basic decoration like making a smooth surface cake covered with butter cream, or making flowers and roses.

I need your help with alternatives, recipes or any advise that can help me producing a tasty manageable butter cream, or a stronger whipping cream for decoration.

P.S. I live in a Yemen.

Use powdered sugar instead of regular sugar. Powdered sugar is also sometimes called confectioner's sugar, and there are a ton of other names for it, especially in different countries. There is a post on here somewhere with all the different names, but I can't find it right now.

Hi Sansony,
Im in the UK we do have those other things but I use butter only in my buttercream it is under fondant so doesnt need to be "white" Im not an expert but I think this should work for you. I use butter vanilla extract coffee creamer in place of milk and powedered sugar. thow it in the mixer and leave it I dont measure my ingredients just do it by texture and taste though it is something like this.

500g butter
1kg og icing sugar
4 table spoons powdered coffee creamer mixed into about 2 tbsp warm water to make it look like milk.
about 1 tbsp vanilla

There are probably people freaking out at my recipe but it works for me and tastes nice. I store unused butter cream in airtight containers in the fridge and just remix it in the mixer before using it.

Hope this helps
Han

You don't mention the kind of sugar you used but just in case you don't have powdered sugar available, you can put regular sugar in your blender and that'll help. I have an acquaintance who did this for her buttercream when I conducted a mini-class for a few ladies in my group and it turned out really well. Better than expected, to be quite honest!

I live in Germany and can find some of the things I need but there are a lot I just don't have easy access to, either. I know it's frustrating! Ordering online works for some things but it'd get too expensive for the basics.

Good luck!

Jenny

I make SMBC all the time (Swiss Merengue Buttercream) which is ordinary white sugar in egg whites and warmed to dissolve the sugar, then whipped until cool. When cooled, lots of butter is whipped in, then continue beating till smooth and silky. This can be flavored with extracts or chocolate or fruit purees afterwards. I use a recipe from Nick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes book (also a brown sugar Martha version) and it is perfect every time. This recipe helps if you are not able to get confectioners sugar.

Because there is so much butter, that is what causes the hardness and taste when right out of the refrigerator. Picture how a stick of butter reacts - when cold and when room temp. The hardness is actually good, because that is the easiest way to smooth with hot spatula. The buttercream will soften (again, like a stick of butter) as it comes to room temp. This is also the drawback to using SMBC...it doesn't hold up as well in the heat as crisco/shotening base frostings do. But if butter is all you can get....

Good luck!

Thank you for all those who stopped and offered advise. I just want to point out that I did use powdered sugar, and also i teaspoon of lite corn syrup. Perhaps the corn syrup is what made the sugar crystalize, i don't know I was never good with chemistry,lol

The thing is i want a buttercream/ anytype of cream that tasts good and I can use to make roses with decoration petal tip. But butter just seems to be just butter, and it is not as white as I'd like it to be.

if you do not have confectioners sugar there is a recipe for BC using regular sugar but it must be cooked....

1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
4 eggs
2 sticks of unsalted sweet cream butter cut into 1 table spoon pieces at cool room temp 65-70 degrees


In a heavy sauce pan mix sugar and corn syrup to a bubbly boil.

Meanwhile in mixer beat whole eggs until fluffy.

SLOWLY (tablespoon at a time) add the sugar/syrup mixture the the eggs, making sure to fully incorporate the syrup mixture before adding more.

After you have added all of the syrup beat on medium speed until the bowl is WARM but not hot.

Begin adding pieces of butter 1 at a time, making sure it is fully melted and mix before adding another piece... This will be easy at first as the mixture will still be warm but as you continue to add butter it gets thicker.

This works best in a stand up mixer but can be done with a hand beater if you had 4 hands!

Enjoy and HTH.

Another trick I learned on here:
if you need a whiter-looking buttercream, counter the slight yellow tinge caused by butter with just a tiny bit of purple food coloring. I mean really, really tiny bit. It works surprisingly well!