I'm using a vanilla buttercream recipe that I really like. It has all the stardard stuff in it...butter, milk, vanilla and 8 cups of powdered sugar. The consistency is perfectly silky but I feel it is too sweet. Anything I can use to cut the sweetness? Would lemon juice work?

Make sure you are using SALTED butter. Salt cuts sweet. Other than that...it may be too sweet for you, but others may love it. Food is so subjective....hard to get that "perfect" result. Good luck!

I only use unsalted butter because you can control the amount of salt in your recipe and also because unsalted butter will almost certainly be more fresh than salted because the salt is a preservative used mainly to extend shelf life. I add fine salt (popcorn salt is great) to my buttercream to cut the sweetness. Try adding just a little but at a time. Start with 1/8 tsp. I add it with the fat at the beginning of the recipe to cream them together and dissolve the grains. I have also heard that the butter in buttercream also makes the end product taste sweeter and more rich than a shortening based buttercream. My buttercream is either all shortening, or no more than half butter. This might help sweetness as well.

Thank you so much fo rthe quick replies. I will try adding some salt.

some people use little sour cream and or little lemon juice to cut the sweetness of their amercan buttercream. I haven,t tried it, but i want to. I do use unsweeten butter and then use fine popcorn salt. Works great for me. hth

i learned that if you use less power sugar it cuts the sweetness.....


lol ...i double my recipe well all the ingredients were doubled except the power sugar....thank goodness i flavored it banana and it took away from the fact that it didn't have enough sugar ....oops