Buttercreams (Cream Fondant)

Buttercreams

Choose Your Own Flavor Adventure

You can use any edible extract, oil, or concentrate or infuse a flavor into the liquid in the buttercream. Some options:

Extracts and essential oils: Most grocery stores carry peppermint, lemon, orange, almond, and raspberry extracts. Some also have rum, maple, hazelnut, chocolate, strawberry, and cinnamon. Natural or specialty foods stores sometimes have essential oils designed for therapeutic use, but many of those are not safe for internal use. You can order edible essential oils online in a wide range of flavors including all the classics and more unusual things like bergamot, clove, oregano, and key lime. Essential oils are much stronger than extracts, so you only need 1/4 and 1/2 t. Start with the smaller amount and add more if necessary. Any of them can be combined, for instance, almond + orange.

Fruit: You can flavor any kind of buttercream with 2-4 T. fruit preserves—any kind of jam, marmalade, or curd will work. If you can’t find preserves in the flavor you want or don’t want to use something pre-made, you can make them yourself by cooking the fruit down into a concentrated paste, adding sugar if desired. You may want to add a flavor extract to the buttecream, too—raspberry preserves + raspberry extract will have more “pop” than either one alone.

Recipe for Raspberry Fondant (Chocolate covered Bonbons) (fondant cooked to soft ball stage with added marshmallow cream, uses fresh raspberries)
Recipe for Chocolate Covered Strawberry Buttercream Candies (uncooked fondant made with cream cheese - similar to cream cheese frosting?, fresh strawberries cooked to a paste)
Recipe for Lemon Creams (uncooked fondant with marshmallow cream added, lemon juice and zest)

Infusions: Herbs, spices, tea, or anything masquerading as tea can be incorporated as follows: heat the evaporated milk or cream to a simmer (20-30 seconds in a microwave on high) and add 2 T. fresh or dried leaves or flowers, and/or 1-2 t. whole spices crushed slightly. Let it steep for 10 minutes and then press through a fine mesh strainer. This is where you can really play with things that don’t show up in commercial candies—basil, rosemary, tarragon, sage, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom pods, earl grey, oolong, rooibos, chai, tea scented with jasmine or fruit. The only thing you have to avoid are spices too finely ground to strain out of the liquid, although even those could be used if you have a very fine mesh bag—one of those disposable bags some coffee shops use for loose teas would probably work. Some flavors to consider are cardamom-plum, strawberry-basil, and orange-bergamot.

Liquors and Liqueurs: Rum, brandy, cointreau, amaretto, frangelico, etc.

Nuts: walnuts for maple walnut flavor (add maple flavoring), pecans for butter pecan

Colorings: We also eat with our eyes, and a filling color that matches the flavor may make them seem ever more delicious. Pink for cherry, raspberry, peppermint flavors, green for spearmint, orange for orange flavor, yellow for lemon. . .

For more flavoring ideas, see the recipes below.

Tips for Making Buttercream Filling

  1. After heating the filling ingredients to soft ball stage, cool the filling to 120 degrees without scraping or stirring the filling. This could cause the filling to become sugary, grainy.
  2. After shaping the filling into balls, let them sit, covered, overnight or for several hours to form a thin crust before dipping. I have read where some have had problems with filling melting when trying to dip them.

Buttercream Filling

The chocolate coating has a little shortening added to it, which is a cheat that ensures the coating will be hard and shiny without the fuss of tempering, even if you store them in the refrigerator.

4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 cups evaporated milk
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups of chocolate chips or pieces
1 tablespoon of shortening

Combine all four ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until it reaches 236 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer (soft ball stage). Remove butter-cream mixture from heat and place the bottom of the pan in a sink of cold water to cool.

Stir well until the candy firms up. Roll into balls or other shapes and place on a waxed paper covered tray and refrigerate for a couple of hours [to form a thin crust].

Melt together 2 cups of chocolate chips or pieces and 1 Tablespoon of shortening over a double boiler stirring constantly until smooth. You could also use the microwave if you stir every 30 seconds and DO NOT OVERHEAT. If you want a more professional finish, consider tempering the chocolate.

Dip each butter cream candy into melted chocolate and place on waxed paper covered tray to set.

Handy Tip: You can change the flavor of the buttercreams by adding a teaspoon or two of flavoring after removing from heat before stirring it firm. Ideas are maple, mint, strawberry, raspberry, coffee...

Alice's Fondant Filling for Chocolates
from https://www.food.com/

"Recipe handed down from my mother-in-law. There are many variations of flavor included at bottom of recipe."
- Submitted by juliec

2 cups sugar
1 cup cream
2 teaspoons light Karo syrup or 2 teaspoons lily white syrup

Combine ingredients in heavy saucepan. Boil until it reaches a soft ball stage. Pour into buttered dish to cool.

After mixture is cooled, pour on clean surface and beat with wooden paddles until light and airy. Just as mixture "turns" mix in flavoring until thoroughly blended inches.

Refrigerate to cool completely. Form into balls. Dip in desired chocolate.

VARIATIONS: Add flavorings once the fondant has cooled.

  • Peppermint (peppermint extract to taste).
  • Maple Walnut (maple flavoring to taste and finely chopped walnuts).
  • Orange (orange extract to taste--a few drops to 1/2 teaspoon).
  • Cherry (Maraschino cherries drained and quartered--pat dry).
  • Cherry-almond (as above but add almond extract to taste).
  • Almond (almond extract with a sliced almond on top of finished chocolate).
  • Coconut (fine coconut plus vanilla).
  • Rum (rum extract plus 1-2 teaspoons butter).

Make 36 chocolates [about 1 and a 1/2 cups of filling]

Buttercream Centers
from https://www.gygiblog.com/

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup white Karo Syrup
4 1/2 cup C&H pure cane sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup Marshmallow Crème

Stir all but marshmallow crème in heavy, 6-8 qt. pot. Bring to boil. Cover with lid for 30 seconds to steam down crystals. Continue stirring and cook to 228º F Salt Lake elevation (or 237° F sea level) on a candy thermometer. [These directions do not sound quite right. You should not stir while boiling. Sugar should be dissolved before bringing to boil.]

Remove from heat and pour, without scraping pan, onto marble slab. Let it cool until a flick of your finger into the candy takes a few seconds to recover. [Cool to 120 F]

Add marshmallow cream and beat with a flat utensil or putty knife until candy begins to lose it's gloss—about 10 min. Let candy rest for 1-2 min. Resume beating until candy begins to stiffen and loses its gloss. Stir in nuts, if you’re making fudge.

Divide and flavor as desired, or add flavoring to entire batch at beginning. Shape into walnut-sized balls (make a rope, cut, shape in Pam-sprayed hands), place on Pam-sprayed parchment, and let sit, covered, overnight or for several hours to form thin crust. Dip.

To make other flavors:

  • Raspberry: process 1/2 cup of freeze-dried raspberries in a coffee grinder and sift out seeds using a fine strainer. Beat raspberry powder into the center mixture. You can reserve some to sprinkle on top after dipping.
  • Orange Cream: 1 1/2 teaspoon Boyajian orange oil, and (if desired) zest of one orange, finely chopped.
  • Lemon: 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon oil, and zest of lemon, finely chopped.
  • Chocolate Fudge: Add dark chocolate chunks to fondant as you begin to cook it, and nuts just as it begins to set in the beating process. [Another recipe adds the melted and cooled chocolate once the fondant has been made.]

Cream Fondant
from https://forums.egullet.org/topic/156969-old-school-buttercream-candies/

1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp. corn syrup
4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
Flavoring as desired

Set aside a 9x13 ungreased baking pan or large marble slab.

In a heavy 4-quart pot, combine cream, milk, corn syrup, sugar and salt. Stir to combine with a wooden or silicone spoon and bring to a boil over medium high heat. If sugar crystals are present on side of pot, cover with lid for a few minutes or wash down with a wet pastry brush. Cook syrup to 238 F (113 C) or soft ball stage.

Remove from heat and pour without scraping into prepare pan or marble. Allow to cool without moving until lukewarm. (The cooler the fondant is when you start to stir, the smoother it will be. Don't go crazy and wait too long, or it will be miserable to get it to move.) Stir with wooden spoon or wide putty knife until creamy and holds its shape. Add flavoring. When it starts to lose its gloss, stir in nuts, if using. When fondant becomes stiff and loses its gloss, it is done.

Wrap in plastic wrap until ready to use.

Shaping fondants

Cover two sheet pans with parchment paper. Break off about a cup of fondant. Roll into a rope about 1 inch thick. With a table knife, cut into 1/2 inch pieces.

place the pieces one at a time in the palms of your hands and roll into balls. If too soft, use a little cornstarch on your hands.

Arrange the balls on the parchment paper. Continue until all fondant is rolled out. With your finger tips, slightly flatten each ball. This will give your finished chocolates a more professional look.

The fondant centers are ready to be dipped, or could stand overnight at room temperature.

Flavor Variations:

  • Vanilla or vanilla nut: 1 Tbsp. vanilla and/or 1/2 cup chopped pecans.
  • Mint: 1/2 tsp. oil of peppermint or 2 tsp. mint extract.
  • Lemon: 1 Tbsp. lemon extract and 1/4 tsp. citric acid.
  • Orange: 1 Tbsp. orange extract and 1/4 tsp. citric acid.
  • Can sub 1 cup of white sugar for 1 cup of brown sugar.
  • Can add 3 oz. unsweetened chocolate while cooking (cook about 2 degrees less if adding chocolate), add some vanilla once cooled. You can add more chocolate if you want. Also, adding a bit of coffee tends to boost the chocolate flavor. Use brewed coffee as part of the cooking liquid.
  • [Coffee Flavor?]
  • You can also add butter if you want.