Chocolate French Buttercream

This week I tried another fancy buttercream. I chose to do a chocolate French buttercream to go with a basic chocolate cake recipe from BHG I've been wanting to try. If I haven't mentioned this before, most of the BHG recipes I try are from a special edition magazine they did on cupcakes.

This chocolate cake recipe is terrific. Why am I not surprised? So far, everything I've tried from BHG has been great. I made the mistake, however, of filling my cups too high and the cakes baked up over my cupcake liners like big flat hats; not very nice to look at. While I like bigger cupcakes (it makes it easier to eat just one), I'll be careful not to over-fill with this recipe again. Hmm, maybe I should try making jumbo cupcakes.

The buttercream was the fun part. I got my recipe from CDKitchen. It had a five start rating. I started off by melting my sugar and whipping whole eggs.

This frosting, like the Italian buttercream, is a lot softer and lighter than American buttercream. It has the texture of whipped cream. It's also way less sweet. Before I flavored it with chocolate it was almost not sweet enough.

I was a little panicked when I added the butter at the end of the process. The mixture was all soupy. I thought I might have done something wrong and ruined a whole batch. Luckily, I was in a very experimental kind of mood. I turned up my mixer a little higher and just let it keep beating. Several minutes later I could tell that it was thickening. Whew! That was a close one.

After I got the consistency I wanted I added a few ounces of melted semi-sweet chocolate to the buttercream. I meant to weigh out 3 ounces or so, but I couldn't find my scale so I just eyeballed it. I think I ended up with 1/3 to 1/2 cup. I can't believe it worked. I always wonder how chefs on TV can just eyeball stuff and dump it in (not that I'm anything like a chef on TV). Anyway, it looked right, so I went with it.

When it came time to frost my cupcakes I decided to fill them with the buttercream first. I then stumbled my way through a couple of piping techniques. What I really needed was a big round piping tip. Is it just me or is every store in every city always out of basic big round piping tips? I'll have to order one online I guess. I'm usually able to get away with cutting a hole in the corner of a ziplock bag. Cooked buttercreams are so delicate though and my ziplock technique didn't work as well, but I did the best I could.

Both recipes are keepers. The chocolate cake I'll do over and over. The frosting I'll probably reserve for special occasions or when I'm baking for someone who doesn't like overly sweet and heavy frosting.