Help! My Chocolate Buttercream Is Grainy
Decorating By crgsnbrown Updated 7 Sep 2006 , 5:50am by cupcake
I think I added a bit too much powdered sugar. This is my first time making chocolate buttercream, my regular buttercream has never come out like this. I am using the easy chocolate buttercream recipe from this site. I tried adding more milk, didn't really help, I even added a bit more butter.. still grainy. What do I do ?
Did you sift the cocoa and the powdered sugar? (did you use cocoa for the chocolate?) Makes a big difference when it's sifted. If not, then I'm sorry I don't know what went wrong. Maybe someone with more experience can help.
The recipe I found on this site is similiar to the one I use. However, my recipe calls for 1 small egg. I mix all ingredients then add the egg. It looks grainy before I add it, but after, it's smooth and silky.
This was from an old recipe written before the concern of using raw eggs. I get my eggs from a local farm and trust that they are fine to use. But as a precaution, I use the pasturized eggs in the carton when I make chocolate frosting for my customers.
There are several cakes with this frosting in my photos.
An alternative suggestion would be to add approx. 2 T of light corn syrup the frosting.
Pam
What I do to avoid graininess in chocolate icing is: cream water, extract, cocoa, and crisco/butter FIRST. Then dump in powdered sugar and add more liquid as needed.
What happens is the cocoa is very high in oil and doesn't incorporate well with all the powdered sugar.
I've never tried choc emulco before. Can you share the recipe? Thanks
There is no recipe for it....Over here in my country, they sell this chocolate emulco in a bottle...(looks like chocolate ganache but ist pure emulco,) not too sure if your country do have this thing....we also have coffee emulco, strawberry emulco and the list goes on.... 
We do hv it here. Do i just use it without any additions?
I use all butter in my choc b/c. I whip the butter well, add the PS, cocoa, salt and milk or kahlua or straight strong coffee for that mocha taste, I blend the ingredients until incorporated and then, scrape bowl, and put my KA on speed 4 and whip it well, it starts out looking lumpy, but the more it is whipped the smoother it becomes. Sometimes I split the butter in half and the rest cream cheese. I have been using this recipe for years and it always comes out good.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%