If you’re like me, you have wondered what in the world you have to do to get your buttercream frosting colors to be brighter. Sure you could dump what feels like a gallon of gel coloring on your frosting, but then you risk the taste being….not so great.
But fear not! The princess has put her science hat on with her crown and discovered the hack to make your frosting colors, bright, vivid and vibrant. It is crazy easy, involves one tool that you are SURE to have in your kitchen and takes only a few moments to witness the magic. Get ready for it: microwave the frosting.
I know, I know, you are saying “won’t that turn my frosting into a soupy mess?” The answer is yes! And that’s the point! You know how they say baking is a science? Let me break down the science of how and why this works.
Butter is an emulsion. It sounds fancy and scientific, but simply stated, an emulsion is a mixture of two liquids that ordinarily resist one another. A classic example is oil and water, they just don’t mix. But what if they did?!
There are two types of emulsions: water-in-oil and oil-in-water. Butter is a special case emulsion, because it’s a water in oil emulsion.
Most butters in America are 80% fat, about 15% water and the rest are salts, proteins, etc. A solid stick of butter is solid fat with tiny droplets of water suspended throughout. When butter melts, the water and fat separate from each other. Here’s how it works: The water in butter contain remnants of the cream from which it was made—proteins. These proteins act as emulsifiers, coating and separating tiny fat droplets as they disperse into the liquid when the butter melts.
You know how so many recipes call for room temperature butter? Even heating up to only room temperature, this is the scientific reason why. Cold ingredients do not emulsify together. There’s no way to get around it. This results in everything from clumpy frosting, chunky cheesecake, dense cake, greasy muffins and deflated breads. No bueno.
Once separated when the butter has melted, the resulting butter soup is more viscous, or let’s say clingy, than either melted butter or water alone. So that melted butter is now holding on for dear life to the gel food coloring and tada!: color absorption and vibrant colored buttercream.
Cold butter is like a shut door and there’s no access to the emulsifying fats. By bringing your butter to room temperature it’s like opening the door and hanging a welcome sign to come on over and enjoy those emulsifiers. So if that’s what happens with room temperature butter, then putting it in the microwave is like having a huge house party! All the ingredients, especially ever bit of liquid from the gel food coloring comes to have a drink and the buttercream color intensifies.
So that’s one reason the color brightens. The other is the heat itself. When you make buttercream frosting, you lighten the mixture as you incorporate air when you whip the butter and sugar together. Most baking recipes begin with creaming butter and sugar together. Butter is capable of holding air and the creaming process is when butter traps that air. When you microwave it and add heat, the air comes out and darkens the mixture.
So never mind that you made buttercream soup! Pop it back into the fridge until it firms back up, give it a quick whip, and poof! Vibrant colored buttercream.
PRINCESS TIPS AND TRICKS FOR BRIGHTER BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
* Use a high fat butter for your frosting.
* Only add gel food coloring. Gel food colorings are more concentrated and water based colorings won’t mix as well.
* Test your microwave. Different microwaves have different wattages. Start with a few seconds. Figure out the happy sweet spot.
* Make sure the frosting firms up completely. If buttercream appears too soft, put back in the refrigerator.
* Remix! You want everything reincorporated.
