Sweet Snippets: Using Leftover Buttercream

Our contributor, Miso of Miso Bakes, is sharing some helpful tips to put extra buttercream to good use.  Enjoy….

Don’t you hate it when you have awkward amounts of tinted buttercream left over?  Most always it’s a tad too much to toss, but not enough to store in a tub.

So, what do I do?  I plop the buttercream onto a piece of plastic wrap, tightly fold the saran wrap into a small purse, date it, and place it in one huge freezer zip bag along with the other ‘awkwards’ until ready to use.

Or, sometimes, I pipe the flowers out, freeze them on a tray, and carefully place them in an air tight container in the freezer until ready to use. I ice the cake as I normally would and place the frozen flowers right onto the cake.  Because the flowers are small I have never had problems with condensation, but if you do, gently blot the flowers with a paper towel.

The small blocks of tinted buttercream or the flowers come in great use when you have to whip up a cake or dessert last minute for an unexpected guest, or if you just want to throw a cake together for your family on a lazy weekend. This is also a great way to use up a few random cake layers or scraps you have sitting around.

The same applies for sugarpaste flowers. I like to freshly make them for important cakes, but I when have one or two extra sugarpaste flowers left over, I cut the stem off and keep them in an air-tight container and carefully place them onto the ‘scrap’ cake along with the buttercream flowers.

Cute, right? : ) The sugarpaste flowers add a nice touch to the cake, don’t you think?  Just because a cake is iced in buttercream, it does not mean you have to only use buttercream to decorate your cake. The same applies for fondant cakes as well! Play around with the mediums and you’ll end up with a product that will make your heart smile!

Happy Caking!