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
Method
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.