[postimage id="6723" thumb="900"]

I want to make this for my father-in-law's wedding.  The flowers are not a problem as i have done them before.  I need to make the buttercream white as my future mother-in-law would really like it to be white and she doesnt want fondant.  I live in the UK and dont have access to the Wilton stuff that the other forum feeds seem to suggest but i have sourced a sugerflair whitening powder which i am going to give a try to but my question is which type of buttercream should i use.  Would you use swiss meringue? or american buttercream? or another kind that i havent thought of? Normally when i make cupcakes i just fire together some cream cheese frosting, or chocolate ganache, or just a strawberry milkshake type frosting but obviously none of those are going to be white white.  Please help me!!

When it comes to colour, I think both ABC and SMBC are pretty similar. The colour in both cases comes from the butter and the vanilla extract. I'd use clear vanilla extract and the palest butter I could find. The whitening powder should take care of the rest.

There are other options, like meringue frosting (not buttercream) and ermine (I think) which are whiter in colour, but I've never used them myself so I don't know how they handle or if they need refrigeration.

Hope this helps!

You can buy white colour paste as well. Haven't used it myself but apparently it's really good.

Apparently lurpak butter is the best to use to get white icing. Beat the butter for as long as possible, then add the icing sugar. Also, adding the tiniest dot (literally a dot on the end of a cocktail stick) of violet colouring is supposed to counteract the yellowness of the butter to give white, although I've never tried this before.

I have used ABC for some 30+ yrs and find it is so slightly off white that most people don't even notice.  The longer you mix it (on slow speed) the better it gets - both in smoothness and color.  Try this and see if you don't agree;)   http://www.cakecentral.com/recipe/22469/2-icing