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baking from scratch, butter, comfort food, cupcake filling, desserts, frost what makes you happy, frosting, fruit dip, housewife, icing, mother of boys, nut-free baking, sandwich cookie filling
I realize that I told you once that I had a recipe for The Only Frosting You’ll Ever Need. I even went so far as to claim that you’d never need to make another frosting ever again for the rest of your life.
A bold assertion, I know.
However, I’ve been on a recipe development jag lately, and my primary focus has been on different cake and frosting pairings. I have volunteered to Guest Post on FrostingForTheCause, in an effort to do my part in raising money for cancer research. Of course, I want offer up something really special for such a great cause. Something perfect to go with a story of one of the ways cancer has touched my life.
Unfortunately, my cake efforts are not quite right, but I’m getting close. And I’m going to be a little obnoxious and make you wait for the story that inspires these efforts until it appears on FrostingForTheCause. (August 16, 2011!)
My failed persistent recipe efforts have yielded a bright spot–a wonderful white chocolate buttercream–which I will boldly proclaim to be The Only Other Frosting You’ll Ever Need.
Yeah. It’s that good.
Start by chopping up some good quality white chocolate, and putting it into a microwave safe bowl. Baking chocolate is fine, but under no circumstances should you use white chocolate chips or candy melts. The waxy coating that helps the chips/melts keep their shape will do weird things to the frosting.
Pop the bowl full of chopped white chocolate into the microwave, and heat for 30 seconds on 60% power. Stir. Continue heating in 30 second increments, and stirring afterward, until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Set the bowl aside so that the chocolate can cool.
Place the softened butter into a large bowl. Sift the powdered sugar and a pinch of salt over the butter, then cream it together with a hand mixer set on low speed for about 3 minutes, or until it gets fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
Pour in the heavy cream and vanilla, and mix well.
Fold in the melted (but cool) white chocolate, stirring until just incorporated into the frosting.
Increase the mixer speed to high, and whip frosting for an additional 3 minutes to whip it up nice & fluffy like–the resulting frosting is a very sweet, creamy, and medium consistency wonder that goes with just about any flavor of cake. At this point you can thin the frosting with more cream to use as a filling for cupcakes or sandwich cookies, or add more powdered sugar to stiffen it up a bit more for use as decorator icing.
Choose your favorite frosting application, and run with it! I am partial to the cupcake application. I’ll tell you about these little cups of love a little later.
♥♥♥
Whipped White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
http://comfortablydomestic.com
Makes about 2 ½ cups
1 C. unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ C. powdered sugar (or more, depending on desired consistency)
Pinch of salt
6 oz. good quality white chocolate, chopped (NOT white chocolate chips or candy melts!)
¼ C. heavy whipping cream
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
- Put the chopped white chocolate into a small bowl. Heat the chocolate in 30 second increments in the microwave set to 60% power. Stir after each increment, and continue to heat 30 seconds at a time, until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside and allow to completely cool.
- Once white chocolate has cooled, sift the salt and powdered sugar over the butter, in a large bowl. Cream the butter and sugar mixture together until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Measure the whipping cream into a cup, and stir in the vanilla extract.
- With the mixer running on low speed, gradually pour the cream mixture the bowl.
- Once the cream mixture has been incorporated into the frosting, fold on the melted (but cooled) white chocolate until incorporated.
- Increase the mixer speed to medium-high, and beat frosting for an additional 3 minutes.
- Makes about 2 ½ cups of frosting.
This makes a medium consistency frosting, which is very spreadable and creamy.
- For a stiff decorator frosting: add more powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, until desired consistency (about another cup or so.)
- For a thinner consistency to fill cupcakes or sandwich cookies, add about ½ cup less powdered sugar.
I’ve made this frosting twice in the last month! I haven’t really baked before, but I stumbled across this recipe and I’m so glad I did! The first time I made a four layer cake (vanilla, rose water, raspberry and red violet) and used the frosting between each layer and right around the whole cake (I made double quantities and had little left over). It was for my friend at work who was leaving to have a little girl, hence the various shades of pink.
I then used this frosting (double quantities again because it was quite a large cake) to make a Cinderella dolly varden cake for my friends daughters 3rd birthday. I tinted a portion of it blue and used that as the dress, then used the white frosting to pipe stars on the dress and all around the bottom edge. This frosting is SO versatile! I did ruin one batch, however, possibly because I over beat the butter in an attempt to make the frosting more white so that the blue would stay blue and not turquoise, but the consistency was so wrong, I just threw it out, followed the recipe and just ignored the slightly green tint of her dress!
So I just had to share that with you, because I’m so grateful I found this recipe. But I also wanted to ask if you could use milk or dark chocolate for this recipe too? I have “bake off” at work next week, and with my newly acquired baking skills, I’m looking for that extra wow! Possibly jam filled cupcakes with this frosting tinted pink (it’s a breast cancer fundraiser)??
THANK YOU!!!
Hooray! I’m so glad to hear of your success, Suzie! Sounds as if you are a Cake Maven in the making. The pink ombre cake sounds both beautiful and tasty. You can most certainly use milk or dark chocolates in this recipe–provided you follow the same chocolate rules (no wax, no chips/morsels) as in this recipe. In fact, I’ve also developed a recipe for Milk Chocolate Buttercream: http://comfortablydomestic.com/2012/02/14/milk-chocolate-buttercream/
As far as a filled cupcake goes, this recipe is one of my favorites, and a real crowd pleaser: http://comfortablydomestic.com/2012/02/13/vanilla-raspberry-cupcakes/
Good luck in the bake-off at work! I’d love to hear how you did.