Comparing 6 Types of Buttercream- American, Swiss, Italian, French, German, & Russian

So today we are going to do a deep dive into making buttercream. And you may not even know this, but there are a lot of different types of buttercream. In fact, today we are going to make six different types, which actually isn't even all of the different types, but these are the most commonly used types of buttercream. And I want to show you how to make each one, and then we'll talk about the differences in all of them. They all have a slightly different flavor, texture, and best use. So today we are going to cover American buttercream, Swiss meringue buttercream, Italian meringue buttercream, French buttercream, German buttercream, and Russian buttercream. It's a United Nations of buttercream. Let's go. We're going to start with the easiest buttercream to make, which is American buttercream. It involves just beating butter and powdered sugar together. Start by adding 227 grams, which is two sticks of room temperature, unsalted butter to your mixer, and beat with a paddle attachment for about 30 seconds until creamy. Then I typically start with about two cups, which is 240 grams of powdered sugar, and beat that with the butter. You can go ahead and add your vanilla extract or whatever flavorings you like here, and a big pinch or two of salt. And then scrape down your bowl. Now you can add more powdered sugar to get to the sweetness level that you like, up to about two more cups or 240 grams more. If your frosting is getting too thick, then you can add a few tablespoons of milk or cream to thin it out. This style of buttercream is the sweetest and thickest of all of the styles we're covering today, and it stays lightly pale yellow. And after it is added to your cake or cookie, it does develop this thin crust on the surface. This can actually be really helpful for cookie decorating so that they don't easily get messed up if they touch each other, but it can make it really difficult to create a smooth look on a layer cake. Next up is Swiss meringue buttercream. To start, you need to set up a double boiler, which is a pan of simmering water that your heatproof bowl sits on top of. Make sure that your bowl is not coming into direct contact with the water. Add 180 grams or 3 1⁄4 of a cup of egg whites to your mixing bowl, along with 400 grams or two cups of granulated sugar. Gently whisk the egg whites and the sugar together while warming them over the double boiler. You aren't trying to whip air into the egg whites at this point. Rather, we're just continuously stirring them with the whisk so that they do not get too hot on the bottom of the bowl and cook. The goal here is to heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved, which will happen around 160 degrees Fahrenheit or 71 degrees Celsius. If you don't have a thermometer to check the temperature, you can stream some of the mixture off of your whisk and then rub it in between your fingers to check for graininess. It should feel completely smooth. Once your mixture is hot enough, remove it from the double boiler and transfer it to the stand mixer fit with your whisk attachment. Whip on medium speed until the meringue cools down completely. I always check by touching the bottom of the bowl to see if I can still feel any warmth. This will take around eight to 10 minutes. Once the meringue is cool and it reaches stiff peaks, you can add vanilla extract or any other flavorings and a big pinch of salt. And then we're going to add our room temperature butter that has been cubed up little by little. You will add a total of one pound, which is 480 grams or four sticks of butter. Don't be alarmed if the mixture breaks and starts looking really curdled as you're adding your butter. This is completely normal. Keep beating it and it will come back together into a really silky smooth frosting. Swiss meringue buttercream is ivory in color and it is definitely less sweet than American buttercream and it is so silky smooth, which makes it really great for smoothing on cakes. Next, we have another type of meringue buttercream, which is Italian meringue buttercream. For this method, we are going to make a sugar syrup, which we will stream into the egg whites rather than heating the egg whites with the sugar. In my pot here over medium low heat, I have 400 grams or two cups of granulated sugar and 170 grams or 3 1⁄4 cup of water. For this method, you do need to use a candy thermometer because it's really important to get to the right temperature. I also have 180 grams or 3 1⁄4 cup of egg whites in my stand mixer ready to go. You want that set up because we're going to start whisking once our sugar syrup gets hot. Once your sugar syrup is about 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 93 degrees Celsius, go ahead and start whisking your egg whites on medium high speed. You want them to be filling up with quite a bit of air before you string in the syrup. Once your thermometer reads 240 degrees Fahrenheit or 115 degrees Celsius, take it off the heat and slowly and carefully stream it into your mixer while it is still running. Keep it slightly away from the side of the bowl because the sugar syrup can stick to it and harden. After all of the syrup is in, continue mixing until the mixture cools down completely and the egg whites have reached stiff peaks. Be patient with it. This is going to take a good eight to 10 minutes to fully cool down. You can add your vanilla or any other flavorings you like and a few big pinches of salt here. And then after the mixture is holding stiff peaks, you can start slowly incorporating the butter. Add your room temperature butter one cube at a time while continuing to whisk on medium high speed and we will be adding a full pound of butter which is 450 grams or four sticks. I always use unsalted butter for all of my frostings so that way I can control how much salt I'm adding but you do want to add salt to any of your frostings so it doesn't taste overly sweet. This frosting will start to break and look curdled as well as you incorporate the butter. But again, just keep mixing and it will come back together into a very smooth and silky frosting. I find Italian and Swiss meringue buttercreams to be extremely similar in flavor and texture. Italian is a bit more stable so if you need to use it in a warmer environment, that can be really helpful and I also find that it doesn't get quite as many air bubbles as the Swiss meringue does. But picking which one to use is really just a preference of method. I personally like the Italian method better. It pipes like a dream as well and it is so easy to smooth on a cake. For the French buttercream, the method is identical to the Italian meringue method except we are going to use egg yolks rather than egg whites. So once again, I have my pot set up with my candy thermometer and I have 250 grams or one and a half cups of sugar and 115 grams or a half cup of water and I'm heating that over medium heat. In my stand mixer fit with my whisk attachment, I have 200 grams or three quarters cup of egg yolks. This will take about 12 large eggs to get this amount. As the sugar syrup reaches 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 93 degrees Celsius, turn on the mixer to medium high speed to whip some air into the yolks. As soon as your thermometer reads 240 degrees Fahrenheit or 115 degrees Celsius, take it off the heat and slowly and carefully stream it into your egg yolks while the mixer is still running. Keep it slightly away from the side of the bowl because the sugar syrup can harden onto the side. Let the mixture continue running until the bowl is cool to the touch and then you can add your flavorings of choice and a few pinches of salt. Add your room temperature butter one cube at a time while the mixer runs and we will add one pound which is 450 grams or four sticks. This buttercream does not typically split on me while I'm adding the butter but if it does, just keep mixing and it will come back together. I find this to be the richest tasting of all of the buttercreams which is not surprising because it has so much fat in it with all of the egg yolks and the butter. It is great as a filling for a cake but be aware that it does not hold up to heat well. It's super silky smooth and it's pretty bright yellow in color and it pipes like a dream. Next, we are diving into a lesser known buttercream which is my absolute favorite style and that is German buttercream. It starts with pastry cream. So in my pot over medium heat, I have 340 grams of milk which is one and a half cups and then in a mixing bowl, I'm combining 200 grams or one cup of sugar, 40 grams or a third cup of cornstarch, three large eggs and a big pinch of salt and I'm whisking all of that together to combine. As soon as the milk is starting to slightly simmer, we are going to temper the egg mixture by very slowly streaming in about half of the hot milk while whisking. Then I'm going to add the egg mixture to the pot and whisk continuously over low heat until it starts bubbling up and thickening. It's going to get very thick. Once it has thickened up, you can turn off the heat and whisk in your vanilla extract or any other flavorings you like. Then transfer your pastry cream to a bowl and press some plastic wrap right on top of it so it doesn't form a film and then we're going to refrigerate it for at least one hour until completely cooled. Once the pastry cream has cooled down, put 570 grams, which is two and a half cups or five sticks of room temperature butter in the bowl of your stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed for several minutes until it has lightened in color and increased in volume. Scrape down the bowl periodically during this process. Now we can start adding the pastry cream little by little to the butter, scraping down the bowl every so often. Once it is all added, you can increase the speed to medium high and beat for another three to four minutes until it is very light and fluffy. German buttercream is also known as creme mousseline and is often used as a filling for pastries. I describe the flavor as ice cream in frosting form and it is the sweetness level that is perfect for me. It's just enough, but it's not too sweet. And do be aware that this buttercream is not very stable in the heat, but if you've never tried it, I highly recommend. And the last buttercream we are covering today is Russian buttercream, or also known as sweetened condensed milk buttercream. This buttercream is almost as simple as the American buttercream, you just need to be a little bit more careful with your timing. I have a half pound, which is 227 grams or two sticks of room temperature butter in my mixing bowl fit with the whisk attachment, and I'm going to start by whisking it on medium high speed until it is about triple in volume. This is going to take several minutes and you wanna scrape down the bowl a few times during this process. The butter will lighten in color and become a very pale yellow. Once the butter has increased in volume, we're going to slowly add one 14 ounce can or 396 grams of sweetened condensed milk. Make sure that it's sweetened condensed milk and not evaporated milk. I do this in about four additions while whisking well in between each and then scraping down the bowl. You don't wanna do this too fast, otherwise it won't incorporate fully. Once all of the milk is added, you can add your flavorings of choice and a few pinches of salt. The mixture may look really thin and soft at first, but keep whisking and it will thicken up. This buttercream is really light in texture, almost like a slightly thicker whipped cream. It pipes very easily, but it is not very stable to hold intricate shapes. This buttercream is much lighter and less sweet than American buttercream with a relatively little extra effort. But I do have to admit though that this is my least favorite of all of the buttercreams. It has a very strong milk flavor, which I just don't love, but many people really do like it. So you should definitely try it if you have it. So I really hope you enjoyed this video and I hope this inspires you to try one of these different types of buttercreams. And if you do, please let me know what you think. And if you have any questions, you can always leave those down in the comment section. I do my best to answer them. And make sure you're subscribed so you never miss a video. And I'll see you next time with another baking tutorial. Wow.