Buttercream is a rather new invention in the history of the culinary arts. First created in Germany in 1915, it was developed to give texture, flavor, and extended shelf life to cakes and other sweet treats.
Yes, you can freeze buttercream frosting in order to preserve it for extended periods. Freezing it consists of two steps: First, wrapping it in plastic will keep ice crystals from forming on it. Then, putting it in an airtight container will keep it from being disrupted by anything else in the freezer.
With these two simple steps, you can freeze your buttercream frosting for up to three months.
How Do You Make Buttercream Frosting That Lasts?
This freezing method should work for every kind of buttercream frosting. Buttercream frost is usually made of butter, sugar, vanilla extract, heavy cream, and (strangely enough) salt. This method is designed to keep those things alive, so if your buttercream frosting recipe is made of something unusual, it might not freeze the same.
This is a weird feature of the internet age. You and someone else might have two different frostings, but both of you has only ever known your frosting as the one, true buttercream frosting. As such, it is important in articles such as this to set a boundary.
It has already been mentioned the essential ingredients of the buttercream frosting that can be easily frozen. But how do you make this frosting? Knowing how to freeze it does not matter if you don’t know how to make it.
The first step is softening one stick of butter. If you have time and foresight, you can do this up to 12 hours in advance. You can leave butter out for longer than that, but just be careful if it is a hotter time of the year, as you do not want your butter to just melt.
If you do not set it out, you can still soften it with a minute in the microwave. The next step is to beat your butter. You want to beat it until it is smooth and going from cold butter to smooth butter is next to impossible. It’s important to work with soft butter, as it will make the beating of the butter far, far easier.
After that, it is time to mix in the sugar. Some recipes recommend powdered sugar, while others recommend granulated sugar (which is the sugar that looks like sort of like salt). In both cases you will be using three cups of it. This difference is worth pointing out, because it actually does not have too much effect on the frosting.
Many people will see differences in recipes and find themselves in a sort of choice paralysis. Which recipe is better? Which is easier? Which should you do? In this case, the answer is whatever is more available and easier for you. There is no secret optimization between powdered and granulated sugar. They are equal.
The sugar should be mixed in just like how the butter was beat. Whether you are using an eggbeater or a spoon, it does not matter. Just be sure to do that separately from other ingredients as to keep the sugar from flying everywhere. In fact, you can mix sugar in one cup at a time to keep it from getting messy if you want.
The next step is actually three steps at once: The vanilla extract (one and a half teaspoon), the heavy cream (two tablespoons), and the salt (just a pinch) can all go in at once. Mix them in just like with the sugar. As you start to mix more and more the frosting will start to look more and more like itself. That means it’s working!
After that, you are basically done. Barring a few dozen minutes of mixing it to absolute perfection, you can put it in the freezer for preserving whenever you want.
