Butter cream icing is easy to make, can be flavoured with coffee, chocolate or citrus oils and holds it's shape beautifully for creating patterns or piping. Buttercream is often used as a filler as well as for icing and side covering.
Ingredients: (Enough to fill and cover an 8" (20cm) sandwich cake.
3oz (75g) butter or margarine
8oz (250g) sifted icing sugar
2 Tablespoons of milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
Method:
1. Beat the butter/margarine to soften.
2. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth
3. Add the milk, vanilla essence and the remaining icing sugar and mix until everything is incorporated.
4. Give a final beat to make sure everything is mixed.
5. For a piping consistency, pull the spoon straight up through the mixture - it should hold it's shape. If it is too soft, add more icing sugar a little at a time until peaks hold their shape.
Variations:
Chocolate - blend 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder with 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Mix to a creamy consistency and allow to cool.
Replace one tablespoon of the milk, with the chocolate paste.
Coffee - Replace 1 tablespoon of the milk with 1 tablespoon of coffee essence.
Orange - Add the grated rind of one orange to the margarine sugar mix in step 1. Replace the milk with 2 tablespoons of the juice of the orange (remove all pips)
Lemon - Add the finely grated rind of one lemon to the margarine/sugar mix in step 1. Replace the milk with 2 tablespoons of the juice of the lemon. (Remove all pips)