Making a Bakery Style Buttercream Frosting

I received the following email from home cook Rhonda requesting a recipe for a buttercream frosting that would taste more like she has experienced at a bakery. Here is what she said,

"I am a stay at home mom that has looked everywhere for the
real sweet buttercream frosting that the bakery uses.  I have looked
on-line, cook books and none of the recipe’s are right.  The kids love helping me make cakes but they only like to decorate them.  They do not like the frosting.  If you have a recipe I would love
it.  I will keep trying until I get the right one.  I hope you can help. Thank you, Hi Rhonda!"

I immediately sent her request to my friend Chef Jenni Field, a professional pastery chef who graduated from Orlando Culinary Academy with her own blog called Pastry Methods and Techniques. Jenni asked for her original recipe that you can see below and offer her the following comments and recipe. (The photo above is from a birthday party my daughter attended. I was blown away at how this caked looked with its rich buttercream frosting that even include the ribbon. It’s not a great photo but I couldn’t ask the hostess to take the cake out of the box just so I could take a photo.)

Hi Rhonda,

I’m sure it must be frustrating to have fun decorating a cake with your kids only to have them refuse to eat it because they don’t like the frosting! I, personally, like almost all kinds of frosting, but I will do my best to give you some recipes that your kids will enjoy.

You said that you are looking for a recipe that tastes like bakery frosting. Unfortunately, there are many bakeries, and most of them use their own “special recipes.” It might be difficult to pinpoint the style of frosting you’re looking for, but I’ll give it a shot. Thank you for sending in the recipe you used. This gives us a place to start.

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup shortening
1/8 salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/8 almond extract
5 cups powdered sugar
4-6 teaspoons half and half

This recipe is your basic Wilton-style American buttercream. The texture can be kind of fluffy but a little bit gritty since it is based on powdered sugar. Powdered sugar contains some corn starch to keep it from clumping, and sensitive palates can pick the raw starch flavor up. Even if you don’t taste the raw starch, the texture is unmistakable—barely gritty if you rub a little between (clean) fingers.

Many icings are based on this basic American fat + powdered sugar + flavoring formula, including one of my favorites, cream cheese frosting. So, I won’t even linger at the standard American counter. Let’s wander over to another counter.

I found a modification of the standard American buttercream in The Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye Hansen and Liv Hansen. I’ve made this before, and it is pretty tasty. The use of boiling water cooks out some of that raw starch flavor, and the resulting texture is much smoother.

House Buttercream

3 cups confectioners’’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup boiling water
1 1/3 cup shortening
3 ½ ounces (7 tablespoons) cool butter, cut into pieces

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Roasting a Rabbit Is Easier Than You Think

The hard part is finding a rabbit to roast. I am lucky to live in an area where we have a farmers’ market, and Eric who runs Stoltzfus Fresh Poultry at the Ardmore Farmers Market not only sells fresh farm chickens, eggs, ducks and turkeys, but he also has rabbit. They are sold frozen, but that’s fine with me.

I purchased one to prepare Rustic Rabbit with Sage and Pancetta from Marc Vetri’s cookbook Il Viaggio di Vetri, but never got around to it and left it in the freezer for another time. But when I heard my friend David B. from Utah was visiting, I pulled it out of the deep freeze to thaw.

David B. is one of the first people I met when I lived in Park City, Utah. He owned a local business that supplied local restaurants with high-end produce, mushrooms and cheeses. His business expanded to become the best local gourmet store in Park City. A few years later, David opened a restaurant on Main Street and is now designing high-end kitchens for local residents.

David knows a lot about food and is also a wonderful cook, so when I told him we were having rabbit, he rummaged around my refrigerator and pantry and together we made this incredible dinner for two. (My wife is out of town for business.)

We didn’t measure anything, so I’m guesstimating the amounts. With this dish, though, I really think it is more about the technique (see my web page on pan roasting) than an actual recipe. You can look through your cookbooks or go online for exact measurements, but I do recommend you experiment with ingredients you like and have on hand or are seasonal.

About Eating Rabbit

You may be a little "reluctant" about eating rabbit, but remember, it is one of the more popular meats eaten in countries like France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Years ago, before the advent of industrialized meat production, rabbit was an important food source here in the United States.

Rabbit compares to dark meat turkey when it comes to calories and fat, and it is a good source of protein. It costs about $4 to $6 per pound, so it’s not nearly as expensive as red meat.

You’ll typically find it labeled "Fryer" or "Young" rabbit and "Roaster" or "Mature". The young rabbit usually weighs in between 1 1/2 pounds and 3 pounds while the mature rabbit weighs in over 4 pounds and is over 8 months of age.

The difference between young and mature rabbit can be found in the meat’s grain and color. The young rabbit has a fine grain that is much more tender than the older, coarse grained, darker mature rabbit. The younger rabbit can be grilled, sauteed or roasted whereas the older rabbit is better braised or stewed.

What Does Rabbit Taste Like?

To me, rabbit tasted like a cross between chicken breast and turkey breast, but my friend David thought it was more like a cross between the white meat and dark meat of chicken. It is mild in flavor making it a perfect conduit for a flavorful sauce like the pomegranate reduction sauce we made. The texture is very similar to eating chicken or turkey.

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Hors d’Oeuvres and Appetizers

This post comes from my friend Chef Todd Mohr who you may have seen in my Novice2Pro Chef Interview with Todd Mohr. You will also find Chef Todd in some cooking videos posted on my web site and cooking blog. If not, check out :

Just How Important Are Recipes

How to Cut an Onion

I will be posting more of Todd’s video’s but I wwanted to share with you a selection from one of his newsletters that I think will "inspire" you.

Inspiration – Hors d’ Oeuvres and Appetizers

Hors d’ oeuvres is translated as “outside the meal”. These one to two bite morsels are meant to stimulate the palate and appetite before the main meal. Today, hors d’ oeuvres events are more popular than ever because of the wide variety of attractive, artful items that can easily be created. Hors d’ oeuvres are en vogue.

Hors d’ oeuvres should be small, one or two bites. They should be flavorful and well seasoned, but not overpowering to shut down taste buds. They should also be visually attractive and compliment the meal to follow, or other hors d’ oeuvres to be served.

To provide a comprehensive list of hot hors d’ oeuvres would be virtually impossible, and limit-less. Global availability of food items, new products, and your creativity gives you license to create anything you imagine.

Some commonly encountered hot hors d’ oeuvres:

1) Filled Pastry Shells - Savory (unsweetened) tartlets, choux puffs, or other small dough products are most often baked to remove moisture content, then filled with warm meat, poultry, fish purees, or ragouts, garnished and served hot. They become soggy quickly, so must be prepared as closely to service as possible.

2) Brochettes / Skewers / Kabobs -
Hors d’ oeuvres brochettes are small skewers holding a combination of meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or vegetables. They are normally baked, grilled or broiled and served with a dipping sauce. Soaking wooden skewers in water before assembly can prevent them from burning.

3) Meatballs - Meatballs are made from ground beef, veal, pork, or poultry and served in a sauce buffet style. Fish and shellfish can also be bound with egg whites or veloute white sauces to create a fish “meatball”.

4) Rumaki - Traditionally, rumaki were made by wrapping chicken livers in bacon and broiling or baking them. Today, however, many other foods prepared in the same fashion are called rumaki. For example, blanched bacon can be wrapped around olives, asparagus, water chestnuts, scallops, or pineapple. Thinly sliced Italian meats like prosciutto or salami can be used in the same way.

5) Stuffed Wonton Skins - Wonton skins are an Asian noodle dough used to produce a wide variety of hors d’ oeuvres such as miniature egg rolls or puffs filled with cream cheese and crab. They can be filled with anything your creativity allows. Wonton skins can be pan fried, deep fried or steamed as for dumplings.

6) Endless Others - Consider phyllo dough wrapped around spinach and cheese filling, or vegetables such as mushroom caps or hollowed small red potatoes filled with sour cream and caviar or Roquefort cheese and walnuts. Tiny artichoke hearts or oyster shells filled with your favorite cheese, fish or shellfish are attractive appetizers.

There are really only two limitations on the type of food and manner of preparation that can be used for hors d’ oeuvres: the chef’s imagination and the foods at his or her disposal. The greatest ingredient you can add (any) holiday is your creativity. Invent something new this holiday and share it with friends!