Fancy German Buttercream

The amounts given make enough buttercream to frost a small cake or about six cupcakes. To fill and cover a 9-inch cake, I would suggest that you triple this recipe.

In a medium sized, heat proof bowl, combine the pudding mix, sugar, egg yolk, and 5 Tablespoons of milk. Set aside.

In a saucepan, bring the remaining milk to a boil. Stirring vigorously, add some of the hot milk to the pudding mixture to temper the egg yolk. Now add the mixture into the rest of the hot milk on the stove. Boil for approximately 20 seconds, until it thickens a little, then remove from heat. Stirring constantly to prevent it from forming a skin, let the pudding cool to room temperature (you can put the saucepan in a cold water bath if you’re in a hurry). Or, you can press a piece of cling film to the surface of the pudding while it cools.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a handheld mixer, whip softened butter until white and fluffy (about 15 minutes). Add salt and powdered sugar. Then, stirring slowly, add cooled pudding mixture one tablespoon at a time and continue mixing until all of the pudding mixture has been added.

Decorate cakes or cupcakes (if it has become too soft to pipe, just let it cool down in the fridge for a bit and try again) and let it firm up in the fridge. It will become fairly solid.

Important note: Make sure that the pudding and the butter are at the same temperature when you combine them. Otherwise, the mixture might split. If this happens you can try heating (but not browning) a tablespoon of butter and quickly mixing it through the split buttercream.

To flavor the buttercream, you can use chocolate or fruit flavored pudding mix, or you can add flavoring liquids to the finished buttercream. It holds up well to freshly squeezed fruit juice, cold coffee, and all kinds of liquor (rum is good). Add the liquids to taste but make sure you don’t use too much (up to two teaspoons) or the buttercream will not firm up enough.