How to Rescue Buttercream

This week Marianne Kovacs asked me this question about buttercream:

I have been trying to make buttercream frosting without success. I am using a recipe that calls for a simple syrup to be heated to the softball stage and gradually added down the side of the mixer bowl. My syrup hardens down the sides and at the bottom, and any syrup that does get incorporated turns into lumps that cannot be piped through a bag. What can I do?

Buttercream – a classic icing for cakes- can be tricky but when it’s made properly it spreads beautifully. Buttercream can give you perfectly smooth finish for your cake, or make a light, fluffy finish plus buttercream can be flavoured in any number of ways.

To make a classic buttercream the way Marianne is describing, a simple syrup of water and sugar is boiled until it reaches softball stage or about 240° F. The syrup is added to beaten eggs with the mixer running. When the eggs and sugar are cool, soft butter is beaten in.

Marianne’s problem is that her sugar syrup has gone past softball stage. The best way to judge your sugar syrup is to use a candy thermometer attached to the side of your pot. Heating the sugar to the proper stage can be a bit tricky because the sugar will plateau at certain points. It takes a long time to hit a certain temperature, and then it will stay at that temperature for a while before it climbs again. But, when it does climb it will go quickly! It’s easy to miss the time to take it off the heat.

Marianne might be taking her sugar syrup off exactly at 240° F, but the sugar is so hot at this point that the temperature can continue to rise a few degrees, push it over the softball stage into the hard ball stage that will result in strings and sugar chunks as Marianne has described. Most recipes tell you to pour the hot syrup into a glass measuring cup before adding to the eggs. This is to stop the sugar from cooking any further. I find that if you don’t work quickly enough, this step might not be enough to arrest the cooking.

Here are couple of things that I do to help with that problem:

1. Soft ball stage is anywhere between 235° F and 240° F. Remove the sugar from the heat a few degrees before 240° F to give yourself a little leeway.
2. Have the mixer close to the stove so when the sugar hits the right temperature you can immediately take it off the heat and add it to the eggs and skip the measuring cup step (I never use a measuring cup but I’ve made it thousands of times so am comfortable working quickly).
3. If you can’t work this quickly, have a bowl of ice water larger than your pot set beside the stove, when the sugar hits softball stage, take it off the heat and plunge the bottom of the pot into the cold water.  This will immediately arrest the cooking and stop the sugar from getting hotter.
4. One other tip is to avoid using a cast iron pot for your sugar syrup – I find that it holds the heat in the metal which continues to heat the syrup.
5. Don’t rely on the water method to determine softball – use a thermometer. It’s much easier and quicker.

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