Butter, butter, and more BUTTER!

So my task for yesterday was to make frosting, lots of frosting. Four double batches of frosting to be exact. Now there are several recipes out there that call for shortening in their buttercream, but to me, that just doesn't add up. How can you call it buttercream if there is NO BUTTER? I've decided I will only use those decorator icings when I really need to make flowers or a pretty design, but to me, the frosting is half of the goodness in a cupcake, so I refuse to use anything but real butter buttercream.

Now, there are 4 different types of buttercream out there (probably lots more, but these are the basic differences). You can make the C&H Powdered Sugar recipe - it is a great substitute for the shortening buttercream recipe and tastes a heck of a lot better. The 3 remaining buttercreams are all similar, just varying parts of an egg is used, egg yolk, egg white, or whole egg. I have tried the egg yolk and whole egg varieties, and the taste is unbelievable, for me, there is no going back to any other type. I stick with the whole egg variety of buttercream that way I don't have to store the other half of the egg, or be tempted to bake more sweets that will just require more hours at the gym. The process is simple, make a sugar syrup, pour that into the eggs while the mixer is running, continue mixing until cool, then add the butter... and lots of butter. The flavoring is added at the end, once the buttercream has come together, and it is only limited by your imagination.

Yesterday's flavors were: Mint Buttercream, Almond Buttercream, Powdered Sugar Vanilla Buttercream (used to decorate the motocross cake, so it needs to hold up a little better), and Cream Cheese frosting.