How to Make 4 Ingredient American Buttercream Icing

Buttercream icing is one of the easiest icings to make for icing your cakes, it so simple to whip up and it only takes a few minutes to create a big batch of this delicious Buttercream icing. I will share with you how to make 4 ingredient American buttercream icing as this is the icing of choice for most professional bakers, so if you want to know more keep reading…

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Buttercream is one of the types of icing that is most commonly used by bakers of all skill levels. Buttercream is often referred to as “American” buttercream. There are several other types of buttercream icings that are used, such as Swiss meringue buttercream, Italian meringue buttercream, and French buttercream, each of these buttercreams have different recipes and ways to prepare, they are generally more time consuming and tricky to make.

American buttercream is best known for its simplicity and being easy to make. American Buttercream consists of butter, powdered sugar / Icing sugar, a little milk or cream and any flavourings that you fancy. Buttercream is quite sweet icing and offers quite a dense and sturdy texture, that makes it great for icing stacked cakes and cupcakes and also for piping decorations and designs onto and around your cakes.

Why is Buttercream so popular?

Buttercream popular with bakers as it is quick and easy to make

This icing is easy to colour

It’s easy to flavour

You can get a nice and smooth finish with this too

It creates an excellent canvas to create your delicious work of art.

You can create lots of different designs and textures with this icing and It tastes great too!

What is American Buttercream made of?

Butter – Of course with a name of buttercream, butter is the first ingredient! The butter is what gives the buttercream icing its structure, buttery flavour and velvety texture.

Powdered Sugar or Icing Sugar – This is what adds the sweetness to the icing

Vanilla or any other flavouring – This is what give the sweet buttery icing another flavour for all to enjoy.

Milk, Cream or Water – This is used to thin the icing if it is too thick. Make sure you add this gradually as if you over do it, it can turn into a runny mess quite quickly if you are too heavy handed.

Ingredients for how to make 4 ingredient American buttercream Icing

• 200g Butter, Softened
• 500g Icing sugar (also known as confectioners’ sugar or powdered sugar)
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract (or any flavour you want to use) – Make sure is a good quality one though.
• Pinch of salt, optional and if you are using salted butter leave this out.
• 2 – 4 tbsp water (you can adjust the amount for desired consistency)
• Food colouring – This depends on how yellow your buttercream is from the butter. You might want to start with adding white colouring first to get a nice base to work from.

To ice 6 or 8 inch cakes I usually mix up 2 batches of this recipe. For my crumb coat I usually use a thinner version of buttercream icing, for example add 3-4 teaspoons of water. I find a thinner version goes on to the cake easier and doesn’t pull the crumbs off of the cake, it just locks them in. For the second layer I would probably only use 2-3 teaspoons of water as this gives a thicker final coat.

Video for How to Make this

How to make 4 ingredient American buttercream Icing

Step 1 – Cream the Butter and Flavouring

Start by placing the softened butter in the bowl of your stand mixer. Set your mixer to a medium speed, and beat the butter and flavouring until they are combined and have smooth and creamy texture. This process is crucial to achieving the right consistency for your buttercream, so make sure there are no lumps, this will probably only take about a minute tops.

Step 2 – Add the Icing Sugar

First sift your icing sugar into a separate bowl to remove any lumps. Then gradually add the powdered sugar to the creamed butter, add about half of the icing sugar at a time. Make sure to mix thoroughly after each addition. As the sugar incorporates, the mixture will become thicker and stiffer and might start to resemble a dough.

Step 3 – Adjust the Consistency

Now have a basic American buttercream and all that’s left to do is get it to the right consistency. To achieve the right consistency, you just need to add water, one tablespoon at a time, until you achieve the desired consistency. When you are trying to achieve the right consistency keep in mind that a slightly thinner buttercream is best for a crumb coat as this spreads better onto a cake better and stiffer buttercream works best for top coats of icing and piping decorations.

Step 4 – Add your Colour

All that’s left to do now is get your American buttercream to the right colour! If you want to add some colour, just add a few drops of the food colouring at a time, mix this in to your buttercream until it’s all evenly mixed and then if you want it a bit darker just add another drop or two and mix in again until it’s all combined. Stick with this process until you reach the colour you want. With food colouring you don’t need much, a little goes a long way. Darker colours like red, dark blues and back deepen in colour over time, so you might want to add the colour, mix in and then leave it for an hour and come back to it to see how much darker it is.

Step 5 – Store and Enjoy

When you have made your American buttercream, you can either use it straightway or store it for later use. If you plan to use it right away, great you can use a spatula to spread this straight on to your cake or pop the icing in to your piping bags with your chosen nozzle or use a coupler if you want to swap nozzle’s and start icing. Or if you are storing in the fridge make sure you keep your buttercream in an airtight container, you can keep this for up to a week. If you are freezing, again store in an airtight container, but this can be stored for up to three months. Before using buttercream from your fridge or freezer you will need to allow it to come to room temperature and give it a quick whip up to restore its smoothness.

How do you know you have got your American buttercream consistency right?

It should be nice and smooth, but still hold its shape. When you spread your buttercream onto your cake it should spread nicely and stick to your cake but, not pull off bits off from your cake.

Tips

If you find your buttercream is a bit yellowy you can add white food colouring to whiten it.

If it’s a hot day and your cake is going to be in the heat, you can substitute 50% of your butter for something like Trex as this does not melt quite as easily.

Final word

Mastering American buttercream icing takes time, trust me. My first attempt at it many years ago was a great laugh for everyone, they still find it funny now! I was trying to make a strawberry icing to go on to cupcakes, but it ended up like strawberry soup! But I kept on practicing and got there in the end. Everyone’s got to start somewhere and when you make big mistakes, like me, you also make big progress and realise how far you have come. If you want to get some practice, but you don’t want to keep baking so many big cakes, just make some mini cakes or cupcakes and practice with these, they are much easier to get through with a cuppa after you have finished practicing!

Happy baking, creating and making, I look forward to seeing some of your designs. If you post these on social media, please tag Party, Party, Disco as I love to see what you have created.

Don’t forget if you share your post on social media to tag Party, Party, Disco and add the #partypartydisco #PPD #imadethiswithppd.

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Happy Making!

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