Basic Chocolate Buttercream
Quick and easy, and did I mention ridiculously delicious? Perfect for every kind of cake, cupcake, random spoonful at 3am (no judgement here!)
Ingredients
- 500 g (18 oz) Powdered Sugar (Icing Sugar)
- 4 tbsp Cocoa Powder
- 250 g (9 oz) Butter Lurpak if possible, or another quality butter
- 2 tsp Vanilla Essence/Flavour
- Water to thin as necessary
Instructions
- Mix the butter until it’s soft and creamy, and add your icing sugar a bit at a time, making sure it’s nice and mixed together before adding more. This is the key to eliminating the ‘gritty’ feel of full butter buttercream.
- Add your cocoa carefully, on low speed
- Scrape down the mixing bowl after incorporating each addition of Icing Sugar, to ensure an even mix. It also helps to mix your buttercream on a relatively low speed, as whipping lots of air into your buttercream can actually make it harder to work with, particularly if you plan to use it between cake layers, as air has to go somewhere, and you don’t want it bulging out of your cake!
Notes
Batch is enough to fill and crumb ice a 6″x5″ cake, or pipe 12-15 Rosette Cupcakes.Basic Buttercream is safe at room temperature for one week. I don’t recommend refrigerating or freezing Basic Buttercream, as it messes with the consistency. You can however freeze prepiped flowers, or moulded elements for up to 3 months, as long as they are well covered to avoid freezer burn. Chocolate Buttercream is also the perfect base for BLACK Buttercream! It requires less colouring for a vibrant result, and the chocolate flavour helps to hide any residual taste from the Black Food colouring.
Hi Kerri!!! Love your site and your videos. I just got some Edible Arts paints and want to try them out on a chocolate buttercream – I have some of the metallics, which I’m hoping will look nice against a light chocolate buttercream background. Is this a crusting buttercream? Any additional tips for painting on buttercream are appreciated! Thanks!
Thank you Rebecca! Basic Chocolate Buttercream IS a crusting Buttercream. When using Edible Art Paints, I like to chill my cakes so they are nice and firm, and thus much easier to work on. The one thing you should be aware of, Metallics take longer to dry when they are on Buttercream in the fridge. This won’t be a huge problem, unless you have to actually touch the side of the cake. I would say 2 days for complete drying if the cake is in the fridge. If you are taking the cake from the fridge, to a warm room, ideally air con would be better, but if not, put a table fan in front of the painting, to help it dry, and so you don’t have any problems with condensation. I haven’t had a problem, but just to be sure!
Thank you so much for your reply! This will be my first attempt at painting on buttercream! Excited to try it and hope I don’t mess it up!!!