Buttercream & Baking Tips and Tricks
Buttercream & Baking Tips and Tricks
I wanted to put together a blog post with lots of tips and tricks I’ve acquired over the years. If you have anything to add please leave a comment at the bottom of this blog.
Enjoy. Kirsty x
To make a beautiful deep red buttercream start with a dark pink base and then add sugarflair red extra.
To achieve black buttercream with out using large amounts of food colouring. Start with a dark brown base and then add sugarflair black extra. Buttercream with cocoa in it will also achieve the same result.
You can freeze decorated cupcakes. Store them in a cupcake box and freeze. Remove from freezer the day before you need them and defrost in the fridge in the cupcake box. This will keep condensation on the cupcake to a minimum. If you defrost at room temp you’ll likely end up with colour bleeding and water droplets on your flowers. Do not assemble a bouquet with frozen cupcakes as your flowers will be covered in condensation. This will stain the tissue paper and cause colours to run.
You can make buttercream flowers well in advance by freezing any piped flowers in a Tupperware box. Again defrost in the fridge to avoid condensation and water droplets forming.
Always allow your decorated cupcakes to crust over before assembling your bouquet. If not you will knock all of your beautiful work. You can also achieve this quicker by popping them in the fridge for 15 minutes. No your cupcakes won’t dry out. That will only happen if you leave them in there for a few days.
When using piping tips with small openings add a tiny amount of cooled boiled water to your buttercream so it’s easier to pipe with. This is especially helpful when piping stamens. Remember one consistency of buttercream won’t always work for every technique.
If you are finding your Russian nozzle flowers are not sticking to the cupcake or you’re being left with rough edges, add a small amount of cooled boiled water to your buttercream.
In summer use ice packs with a tea towel on top to place your piping bags on and have two bags for each tip on the go so you can alternate.
In winter you can add a small amount of boiled water to your buttercream to make it easier to pipe with or put small amounts of buttercream in the microwave on short intervals of 10 seconds instead.
To add a vintage look to your flowers add tiny amounts of brown food colour to your buttercream. This will help tone down bright colours like yellow for example.
Try and avoid putting really dark coloured flowers right next to white or cream flowers. You may find the colour transfers to your light coloured flowers.
If your edges are frayed on your petals it’s one of these reasons
Your bag isn’t tight enough when piping
Your buttercream is too warm
You’ve over mixed your buttercream
To achieve a translucency to your flowers coat the inside of your piping bag in a very thin layer of white buttercream.
Add a line of contrasting coloured buttercream down two sides of your piping bag and then fill the centre with green buttercream to achieve colour variations in your leaves. This also looks lovely when adding two lines of light green and then putting dark green in the centre.
great piping Tips to help change up your flowers centres are:
Bcs 28, bcs 105, Ateco 85, Jem 362, small Russian stamen tip
To pipe a 5,6 or 8 petal flower flat ice your cupcake and then use a palette knife to score lines along the top. That way you can assure even sized and spaced petals.
When piping 3 individual flowers on a cupcake top, flat ice the top and then use the base of a large Russian nozzle to mark the top of the cupcake, so you know where to pipe and to help keep things evenly spaced.
Use makido biscuits when piping tall flowers on your cupcakes. It will add support and its edible
If your buttercream is leaving grease marks on your tissue paper add in an extra layer of cellophane during the wrapping process. Sheet of cellophane, tissue paper and then another smaller sheet of cellophane. No more grease transfer.
If following my buttercream recipe, your buttercream will be good to use until the butter goes off as there are no extra ingredients. Always store it in the fridge
Don’t whip your butter when making buttercream. It will add in too much air and your flowers will look spongy. For thin realistic petals keeping mixing to a minimum.
If your cupcakes are slipping into the bouquet cups, use two squares of tissue around the cupcake instead of one. You can also put some tissue paper inside the cup too.
When working with frozen cupcakes, to prevent the cases from peeling as they thaw out, flat ice the top in buttercream. It will seal in the moisture and stop the case from peeling.
When mixing in paste food colours, take a table spoon of buttercream and mix the paste colour into this small amount. Then add this to the rest of the buttercream that you want coloured. This will prevent under mixing the colour in which will leave streaks and it will also prevent over mixing the whole portion of buttercream.
Adding a touch of violet (and I have found some blue shades work too) helps to remove yellow undertones in your buttercream. Meaning you use less whitener and save money.
Freezing your cupcakes will make them more moist and you can pipe directly on to a frozen cupcake
Remove air bubbles from your buttercream by pressing it against the side of the bowl using the back of a spoon. Don’t stir as this will add more. I do this by taking a small portion of buttercream and working it into the side of the bowl multiple times.
Use a large ice cream scoop to portion out your cupcake batter. This way each cupcake has the same amount of batter and they will all cook evenly.
If your piping tip is blocked pop the end of the tip in some hot water to get it moving again.
To speed up cleaning your piping tips. Pop them in a bowl of boiling water. After 10 minutes most of the buttercream will be dissolved and you can clean them much easier.
To add realism and depth to your petals add two colours into your piping bag. One lighter and one darker.