Glorious condensed milk buttercream
An almond buttermilk layered birthday cake iced with pink condensed milk buttercream and decorated with condensed milk buttercream flowers. Read on for the buttercream recipe!
Condensed Milk Buttercream Frosting
Also known as Russian buttercream. Makes almost 4 cups of frosting
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) of unsalted butter, at room temperature
14.5 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of powdered sugar
Equipment
Sifter
Electric mixer (stand mixer or hand mixer) with paddle or whisk attachment
Can opener
1 cup measurer
1 teaspoon measurer
Hair dryer (optional)
Directions
Whip butter in mixer for around 5 minutes until the butter is fluffy and almost white in color.
Add condensed milk in 3 installments, mixing thoroughly between each one.
Sift powdered sugar into the mixture. Mix thoroughly.
Finally, add vanilla extract and mix until the buttercream looks smooth and silky.
* If the frosting gets overly whipped or separated, put the mixer on low speed and blow dry the outside of the bowl as you mix to gently raise the temperature of the mixture. It will become smooth and silky eventually.
Two big revelations about condensed milk buttercream:
Condensed milk buttercream has almost all the physical properties of a meringue buttercream in terms of smooth-ability and pipe-ability, but the flavor is way better than a meringue buttercream.
You can paint directly onto condensed milk buttercream with gel food colors - no need to dilute the gel colors with alcohol! More on this point in a future blog post.
Top view of the cake. Flowers are made of the same buttercream that the smooth top and sides are iced with! My handwriting leaves much to be desired, so I made several versions of the script on top with white chocolate on parchment, and I only transferred over the prettiest one.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make and use this condensed milk buttercream aka Russian buttercream. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of all the benefits of condensed milk buttercream:
Pipes well: It’s a little softer than Italian or Swiss Meringue buttercream, but still pipes into flowers and succulents remarkably well. Case in point: all the apple blossom flowers in the cake above are made of condensed milk buttercream. Note that piped flowers and succulents definitely need to be frozen before you handle them.
Frosts cakes smoothly: It goes onto to cakes evenly and smoothly (nothing like cream cheese frosting which is too soft and shows every flaw). It's easy to get smooth sides, flat tops, and perfectly sharp edges. I cheated in the cake above with an almost-naked finish and a raw edge, but I easily could have gotten a smooth opaque finish and sharp sides if I’d wanted to.
Can be stored without separating; It doesn't separate the way that Italian or Swiss Meringue buttercream does after storing! Nor does it crust. If you want to store it for a few hours and then use it again, you can give it a stir by hand - no need to whip it in the stand mixer for it to become useable again.
Doesn’t require egg white fussage: No need to fuss with separating eggs and whipping egg whites like you’d have to with Italian or Swiss meringue. You also don’t need to worry about whether the egg whites are cooked enough for food safety reasons.
Can be painted on: You can paint directly onto cold condensed milk buttercream using gel soft colors. Blog post on this is coming soon.
And most importantly, delicious: Condensed milk buttercream has a rich, milky, almost caramelly flavor - a million times better then American buttercream (which tends to be overly sweet, grainy, and one-note), and it's more flavorful than either Swiss or Italian meringue buttercream (which are overwhelmingly buttery and leave a greasy mouthfeel, although I concede that meringue buttercream pipes the prettiest flowers / succulents and looks very smooth on a cake).
Side view of the cake. I opted for an almost-naked finish, but it also would have been possible to create a smooth, opaque finish with the condensed milk buttercream.
I was getting tired of people leaving behind all the meringue frosting I put on the outside of my cakes. Since I started frosting cakes with condensed milk buttercream, my cake eaters have cleared their plates (with pleasure!).
TBD on how easy it is to marble condensed milk buttercream or do things like ombre or kintsugi with it.