Cooked Butter Cream Frosting

An example of a cake with butter cream frosting.

The first butter cream frosting, a boiled French frosting, appeared in the 1935 American cookbook, "A Treatise on Cake Making." Butter cream frostings hold a place of honor in many American cookbooks. Butter cream frosting consists of butter, sugar and egg. In Italian butter cream recipes you heat syrup into a soft ball, whip it into foamy egg whites and add butter. For French butter cream recipes you whip heated yolks and sugar until foamy and then add butter. The method for making cooked American butter cream frosting is explained here.

Things You'll Need

• Double boiler
• Electric mixer
• Candy thermometer
• Wire whisk
• Measuring cup
• Measuring spoons
• 1 lb. unsalted butter
• 1 cup white granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. table salt
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Break eggs into the large bowl of your electric mixer. Using a hand whisk, fluff up the eggs so they are light and airy. Then add the sugar, salt and vanilla and keep whisking the mixture until the contents of the bowl are blended and light.

2. Pour 2 cups of water into the bottom pan of a double boiler and heat the water on high until it boils. Turn down the heat to low so that the water is simmering.

3. Transfer the egg mixture into the top pan of the double boiler. Insert the top pan over the bottom pan holding the simmering water. Whisk the egg mixture over the simmering water until it reaches 160 F on the candy thermometer.

4. Attach the flat paddle beater to your electric mixer and transfer the mixture from the double boiler to the large mixing bowl. Beat the double boiler contents until they are a soft shade of yellow and fluff up. By this time, the mixture in the mixing bowl should have cooled to room temperature. This is important so that the butter you add in the next step stays firm.

5. Cut the butter into eight pieces. Adjust your mixer speed to low and while the mixer whirs, add each piece of butter separately in 10-second intervals. It's OK to see lumps in the batter as you add the butter. The butter will start to combine with the mixture and eventually the entire batter will be smooth and velvety.

6. Test the taste of the frosting to ensure it is sweet and buttery and has no lumps or gritty sugar crystals.

Tips & Warnings

• The amounts of the ingredients should frost either a 2-layer, 9-inch, round cake or a 3-layer, 8-inch, round cake. If you are diabetic, substitute granular sucralose and use the same amount that the recipe calls for in the sugar version.

• If children are helping to make the frosting, they should always be supervised by an adult when they are using an electric mixer. Use caution when heating a double boiler on top of the stove because sometimes handles will conduct heat. When grabbing handles, wear a hand mitt or use a pot holder.

References

• Cooking for Engineers: Buttercream Frosting (American); Michael Chu; May 2006
• The Food Timeline: FAQs: Cakes; Lynne Olver; 2000