French Buttercream Icing

Making French buttercream is like creating a small miracle in your own kitchen. With the help of a little food chemistry, three simple ingredients– egg yolks, sugar, and butter– are combined to make the silkiest, most decadent icing on earth. You do need a few special pieces of equipment, plus a little patience: Buttercream can’t be rushed.

Things you’ll need:

• small saucepan
• candy thermometer
• stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment

Ingredients:

• 1 lb granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 8 yolks
• 6 sticks unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla

Combine the sugar and water in the saucepan and stir just until combined and the sugar is dissolved. **Do not stir once the mixture starts to heat.** Use a candy thermometer to monitor the syrup’s temperature, making sure not to let the tip of the thermometer rest on the bottom of the pan, which causes an inaccurately high reading.

Heat until the mixture reaches 240 F. Be patient — you’ll notice that the first 220 degrees go by in a flash, while the last 20 degrees seem to take forever.

If sugar crystals start to form on the side of the pan, wash them down with a damp pastry brush, as pictured.

Meanwhile, whip the yolks in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy. When the syrup has reached 240 F, immediately remove from heat and pour it directly from the saucepan into the mixer bowl over the yolks in a thin, steady stream while the whisk is still in motion. Be careful not to let the syrup hit the whisk, or the syrup will splatter and harden on the side of the bowl. Aim for the space between the whisk and the side of the bowl. This process should take several minutes–don’t pour the syrup in all at once.

What’s going on here? We’re cooking the eggs with the hot sugar syrup. Nobody likes to eat raw eggs.

Once the syrup has been incorporated, turn the mixer to high speed and let it whip away for a good 10 minutes or until the mixture has cooled to room temperature. The mixture will be thick and very light in color.

Once the mixture has cooled, you’re ready to incorporate the butter. Now, we’ve got a lot of butter to incorporate, and you can only incorporate about a teaspoon at a time. So this will take what seems like forever.

With your fingertips, break off bits of butter (in teaspoon-sized chunks) and drop them into the yolk mixture one at a time, waiting for each bit to be fully incorporated before adding the next. Pull up a stool; you’ll be at this for a while.

At about the fourth stick of butter, you’ll think you’ve done something wrong, because all you’ll have is a globby, lumpy bowl of pale yellow goo. But about halfway through the fifth stick, your buttercream will start to come together and, lo and behold, it will start to look like buttercream! It’ll be a smooth, silky mass of ivory gorgeousness. Whisk in the vanilla, or flavor it with the liqueur of your choice.

Use immediately, or store for later use.

Storage and Use: This recipe makes enough to ice and decorate a full sheet cake, which is a fairly large quantity. The good news is that French buttercream can be frozen for up to three months. Store any unused quantity in an airtight container. Beware: Buttercream absorbs freezer and refrigerator odors quickly, so remove any stinky food items.

Side note: Why’s it called French buttercream? I don’t really know, but the French method refers to the use of yolks as the base for the icing, as opposed to the Swiss method, which uses egg white meringue. I personally think the French variation is richer and has a more full flavor (thanks to the yolks), but it doesn’t give you the pure white color desired for most wedding cakes. So if you’re frosting a wedding cake and want that classic white look, go for the Swiss method. I promise I’ll post a recipe for it soon.