Buttercream Perfection

"Have patience, have patience
Don't be in such a hurry
When you get impatient, you only start to worry
Remember, remember that God is patient, too
And think of all the times when others have to wait for you"

Anyone remember this song from Sunday School? No? Check it out on YouTube here. You will be singing it all day! You are welcome!!

My husband sings this to me when I get frustrated, makes most situations even worse. However it reminds me of something my baker friend once told me. She said the key to perfect buttercream is to go slow! 

If you've been following the blog you may have read, more then once, how much I don't like working with buttercream. I love the taste, especially when someone else makes it, but could never get it right. 

My oldest is in school now and the other day my other two children both decided to have a two and a half hour long nap...at the same time!!!! If you are a momma you understand what an amazing time that is!! My hands were free and I had some time to sit and perfect this recipe once and for all. 

Now I know what most of you are thinking, how difficult can it really be? I mean it's just icing. What I am trying to achieve is an icing with the right consistency so I can decorate my cakes and have it stay in shape.
  
The recipe itself is pretty straight forward, but after chatting with the experts and some research online I came up with some tips to help you achieve the prefect icing for decorating. 

I got out my kitchenAid which I love SO much! My parents bought me one the Christmas after I got married. I cried. For real. If you have a stand mixer I suggest you use it instead of a hand mixer cause this will take a while and you may want both hands free.

Remember the main ingredient this needs is patience! Take your time. Unlike the perfect cupcake, you can let this keep mixing for a while. 
The recipe calls for half a cup of butter and half a cup of shortening. You need your butter to be very soft but not melted. I left it on the counter over night and it was perfect. Place both in your mixer and start to mix on the lowest speed. 

Another little tip just in case you've never noticed it before. On most shortening and butter packages/wrappers they have a ruler to help you cut the amount you need so you get accurate measurements every time.
You want to keep mixing until both are combined. Scrapping the bowl as you go. While that is mixing start sifting your icing sugar. Most times I would skip this step to save time but it is necessary. If you want a clean, clump free icing you need to sift it.

Once the butter and shortening are combined, with the mixer still on low add the icing sugar slowly half a cup at a time. In between cups of sugar add a little bit of warm water, to help thin out the mixture. If not your just gonna have a clump of sugary butter. You add as much or as little as you want until you achieve the consistency you are looking for. Scrapping the bowl every so often as you go.

If you want to add any flavors or vanilla extract this would be the time to do it as well.

I have had a lot of people ask how to cut the super sweet sugar flavor and remove some of the gritty texture and your answer is lemon juice! Add just a small amount to help it all blend together smoothly.

Once all the sugar has been added you can add more water or even more sugar to achieve the consistency you want. I wanted a thicker icing so once it was all evenly blended I turned off the mixer and tasted. Which is important, and the best part. You can adjust it by adding more vanilla or lemon juice if it's too sweet or bland.

Perfection! I just about jumped up and down when I lifted to taste! It was perfect. It was a little thicker then normal but compared to the runny mess from the past I was not complaining. You can always add just a little more warm water to the mix. No clumps of sugar or unmixed better. It was all combined and uniform. 

Something you may want to consider as well is adding meringue powder.You don't use it often in other recipes but it is used a lot in icing recipes. It adds stability to the icing and a great texture.It is basically just dried egg whites. Perfect for piping and decorating. You can find it at Walmart, Bulk Barn, Michael's or any other craft or bulk food store in their baking isles. I didn't use it this time mainly because I ran out and didn't want to wake up the sleeping angels to go by any. Don't panic if you see it in a recipe and you don't have any. But next time your at the store, pick some up and try adding it to see if it helps you achieve your desired consistency and texture.
 

Other recipes call for milk instead of water. I tend to use water just in case it needs to sit out or if I use it under fondant I don't want it going bad. But there are other icing recipes that call for milk or cream for a reason. This one is personal preference.

Finally I added some color. I wanted pink icing to compliment my watermelon cupcakes.

Once you have iced your cake, if you still have left over icing you can store it in the freezer! 

There you have it, a simple yet perfect buttercream icing. If I can do it, you certainly can do it! :)

Ingredients
1/2 cup of shortening
1/2 cup of butter
1 tsp of Vanilla
1 tsp of Lemon Juice
1/4 cup of warm water
4-5 cups of icing sugar
food coloring optional

1. Combine butter and shortening in mixer on low until completely combined.
2. Sift icing sugar, then add it to butter 1/2 cup at a time.
3. Add vanilla and lemon juice. Adding warm water slowly as you go until you achieve the consistency you desire. Keeping the mixer on the lowest setting.
4. Once it is all well combined place it into a piping bag and start decorating!

Enjoy :)

Perfect Cupakes Using Boxed Mix

Before I gave birth to my oldest daughter I was off work for 3 months. We moved from Amhertsburg to Sudbury Ontario 8 hours away, I was 6 months pregnant at the time. New city, no job and about to have a baby. We hadn't sold our Amherstburg house so we were living in the basement apt of good friends of ours. I had nothing to do most days so I baked. It worked out so well cause I could bake a huge batch and share it with our friends upstairs without having to worry about waste. The Mrs would tell me how much she didn't enjoy baking. It wasn't that she wasn't good at it, just that she had no desire. I totally get it cause I am the exact same way with cooking. I can do it but its definitely a chore. But I am here to tell you that it is so easy to make gourmet styled desserts with little effort.

I love cupcakes!! Like LOVE them. Its my favorite thing to bake with my kids. They have so much fun and ask to make them regularly. When we bake together we use a mix. It so much easier. I feel like boxed cake gets a bad rap. I had a friend once who would ask me every time I baked a cake if it was from scratch or a box. She would then turn her nose and not eat it if it was boxed! For real!

Don't get me wrong, I try and bake from scratch as often as I can and especially if it's a paid order. Sometimes though, I don't have the time cause I was asked to bring dessert to a function last minute, or I'm lazy so I grab a box. Let me tell you, people cannot taste the difference most times. I get TONS of compliments on how moist, fluffy and delicious my cakes are when they are made from a box.

So today I am going to give you a few tips on how to turn your box mix into gourmet cupcakes in just a few minutes.

First pick your mix! I wanted to try something funky today so I'm using Duncan Hines white cake mix. I want to change the flavor and color of these cupcakes. I want to try and make watermelon flavor and look. I included two different types of food coloring in the picture. Your basic liquid food coloring or the Wilton gel food coloring. I prefer the Wilton for a few reasons. One they have a large range of colors to choose from and two they require less to achieve the right shade. The color tends to fade when baking so you want your batter to be darker. It's just all around easier to achieve this with the gel color. You can get it at the Bulk Barn and Michael's craft stores.

Next for flavor I wanted to try something a little out there. I found these flavor oils while browsing at Bulk Barn one day. They can be used for so many purposes, when making candies or even to flavor your fondant. There are only a couple bucks and you only need a couple drops cause its so concentrated so it should last a bit.

Collect all your ingredients. It's easier if you measure ahead of time and have everything ready before you start mixing. Preheat your oven according to the directions and get your pans ready and lined.

Next put away your mixer and grab a bowl and a whisk!! I will explain shortly. One of the first things I do before I add ingredients is to whisk the dry mix. It helps break up any clumps and adds some air to the mix. You man notice I had a little helper on the recipe!

Next pour in the ingredients as marked on the box. Now they give you specific instructions on how long to mix it. This is very important. You do not want to over mix it!! That's where the bowl and whisk come it. I find it is too easy to over mix with a mixer. you get caught up or aren't looking at the time and you go too long. You only want to mix until it is blended. When you over mix it, the gluten in the flower can form elastic gluten strands, causing a more dense and chewy texture. What we want is light, fluffy and moist!

At any point you can add your food coloring and flavor. I tend to add them at the beginning with my other ingredients so I don't run into over mixing it. Remember only a drop or two of the flavor oil or else it will take over! It is really concentrated and it only takes a little bit. Any more and the smell and taste will overwhelm you. You want it to be a nice subtle taste! But for color load it in. Remember the color fades when baking!

Now it's time to scoop. If you want even sized cupcakes I suggest you get an old fashion ice cream scoop that has the trigger. That way you know how much you are getting each time and it scrapes it out for you!

Into the oven they go! They always give an estimate on the time and each oven is different. So I always put it at the shortest time listed and then check with the toothpick. If it's clean then take em out! If not put them in for another minute or two until the toothpick is clean. Just like over mixing we don't want to over back them!

Let them cool and top them with your favorite buttercream!
Perfect, fluffy and delicious cupcakes every time!
Enjoy!
Comment below if you are interested in other boxed mix ideas!

#cupcakes #watermeloncupcakes #boxcakemix #foolproofcupcakes

Buttercream haunts my dreams

When I first started making cakes I saw fondant as a challenge. I figured anyone can make a cake out of buttercream, it was the easier option. So every cake I made was with fondant. After about 20 cakes I felt like I had conquered it and was almost professional...almost. I slowly figured out that most people didn't actually like the taste of fondant, unless you're my mother in law who can't get enough.

There are certain occasions where fondant does not work and it needs to be buttercream. A really good friend of mine approached me about making two smash cakes for her little girl's 1st birthday. They were going to do a cake smash photo shoot and then wanted a small cake for her party. Both needed to be buttercream for the adorable icing covered baby look they were hoping to achieve. Again I thought no problem, anyone can make and use buttercream! Wrong!!! I suck at it!! I have no idea why, or what I am doing wrong but it is consistently horrible! I use the same recipe as all the professionals but for whatever reason it never works out. It's either lumpy or runny and never holds its shape. More on this later.

For their first cake request they asked for a large cupcake with pink and white icing and little flowers on top. I didn't have a pan to make the super large cupcake and was planing on renting one from the bulk barn. Until one day when I randomly decided to browse the house section at the Superstore and found the large cupcake pan for only $10!! I was pretty giddy.

It was surprisingly easy to make, I just googled the directions online since the pan didn't come with any. You can find the link here.

The cake came out perfectly! Now time to decorate.
Back to my inability to make a decent buttercream. I followed the directions and started to ice the cake. As I was working on it I was finding the consistency of it was really runny and wasn't holding it's shape. That is a big problem when you are trying to pipe vertical lines to make a cupcake liner. Many times I actually had to scrape it all off and try again! I was getting so stressed out, to the point of texting my friend and apologizing before she even saw it!

I kept at it knowing I had to finish it. It came out ok. It looked decent enough but I definitely wasn't bragging. . They kept telling me not to worry cause she was only going smash it! I felt the flowers were the best part cause they were made with fondant...my specialty
It looked ok in the pictures as long as you focused on the adorable birthday girl instead!

For the party smash cake they wanted a 6'' cake with buttercream roses in a pink ombre. I've seen the pictures and these are some of my favorite looks. But again my dilemma with buttercream had me so nervous and stressed out. When I first attempted the flowers they slid off cause the buttercream was too runny. I was running out of time to experiment and was almost in tears so I made a quick run to Bulk Barn! The beauty of living in the city, it was only 5 minutes away. I purchased their delicious pre-made buttercream and tried again. This time the flowers came out perfectly! I was pretty excited. I later had a chat with a culinary friend who told me what I did wrong and how to fix it. So next week come back and we will attempt it together. I will offer you tips on how to perfect your buttercream based on my previous mistakes!

Thanks for Reading!

#buttercreamcakes #smashcakes #largecupcake #pinkombrecake

What year is it?

I cannot believe how much time has past since I first started this Journey back in 2010. So much has happened in that time. My husband and I have since made 2 major moves across Ontario. From Amherstburg to Sudbury and finally landing in Fergus Ontario. We've also had three yes 3 little babies. I may have mentioned my oldest in a few of my posts and believe it or not she is two weeks into junior kindergarten! There have been many months and years of stress and uncertainty but we are now starting to really settle and put down some roots. 
Now that things are starting to feel a little back to normal I am ready to start baking again! If mainly to just help feed my sugar cravings! 
The blog will soon get a fresh look as well! So please subscribe to keep in the loop and know I will be back soon!

Luisa :)