Flour Butter Cream Icing

 Butter cream is usually extremely sweet. The bakery cakes which we eat, often uses this sweet cream, of-course with margarine, which isn't healthy (and to cut costs)..... That's when I started surfing the internet baba for eggless butter cream recipes.

There are different kinds of BC-IMBC, SMBC, ABC etc. Hence stumbled upon a few. And I liked this one and few alterations made to suit my taste-buds.

For my eggless vanilla cupcakes (recipe click here) I made this Floury Butter Cream icing. First when I started reading...I could only think of white sauce pasta because of the flour and milk procedure hahaha. And was going crazy thinking of pasta and butter cream..How will the taste be? Creamy? Floury? Too sweet?

This buttercream is creamy,light, fluffy and delicious. It is made by first cooking a simple pudding made with milk, sugar and flour. Once this pudding base has cooled to room temperature, you add it to beaten vanilla-butter by the spoonful.
And the result? A light and creamy buttercream with a pale ivory color. Although, this buttercream is hardly any different to the  Classic American Buttercream, just for the flour and is a little less sweet and more subtle in flavor.

I am doing a step wise picture tutorial for better understanding. Hope this helps as well.


Ingredients

• Milk-1 Cup
• Flour-4 1/2 Tbsp
• Sugar - Half Cup
• Unsalted Butter-1 Cup, room temp
• Vanilla Essence- 1Tsp
• Salt- a pinch(optional)

Method

Whisk together milk and sugar in a medium saucepan until the sugar dissolves.

When you dissolve sugar into the milk, the buttercream is guaranteed to be creamy and smooth! No sugar crystals crunching between your teeth.

Whisk in the flour. Give it good whisk to eliminate lumps.

Place the saucepan over low heat and bring this to a boil, whisking continuously, cook for about 1-2 minutes. 

Remove this custard from the heat. 

By whisking the flour into the sugary milk, you minimize the risk of getting flour lumps in the pudding base. 

This custard should hang from the whisk but should not pour down as a stream from the whisk.

Immediately cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic wrap directly against the pudding's surface, so that a crust is not formed.

In a mixing bowl with a handheld mixer, beat the butter until smooth and fluffy and lightened in colour, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla to this and mix well.

Add the cooled pudding one tablespoon at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add a pinch of salt(completely optional) and beat until buttercream until it looks thick, smooth, and creamy (about 3 minutes). Beat the mixture until it is stiff enough to pipe and hold shape.

By beating the softened butter until it's pale and creamy and then adding this to the pudding base one spoonful at a time, the buttercream comes together very easily.

This is the just whipped and coloured Flour Butter Cream Icing.

These are different designs I could pipe.

                                                             
                                                                Vanilla Cupcakes (recipe click here)

Use immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to one week. 

To use buttercream that has been refrigerated, first allow to come to room temperature then beat until smooth and spreadable again. Cakes/cupcakes decorated with this buttercream generally keep up to 3 days, stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

A few Tips:

• You can make this buttercream allergy-friendly by using gluten-free flour instead of the all-purpose, and also lactose-free milk. No lactose, no gluten! (which is the new trend catching up in India)

• The custard should not be too thick. If it becomes thick, make sure to pass it over a sieve to discard the lumps.

• Salt is added to enhance the flavour of the butter cream, so just add a pinch not more. And please never use salted butter.Always use unsalted butter for icings.

• The custard must be at room temperature while adding butter. If it is hot, then the butter will melt in the custard and your buttercream will not be creamy nor will it be able to hold stiff peaks.

  

Do try this and leave me a comment !! Would love your feedback.
And do let me know, if you like my picture tutorials and would like to see more of this.