How to Make Buttercream Frosting in Japan

     There are plenty of recipes online regarding how to make buttercream frosting, but most of them come from North America, where the assumption is that of course you need a gallon of frosting for whatever you're trying to do and can come across mass quantities of things like icing sugar that will not be hard or expensive to procure.

This is seriously all you need other than a bowl and a wooden spoon.

     In Japan, even the small baking department at the grocery store closest to my home has icing sugar, also known as confectioners sugar, as well as a number of other things that could be useful, but in much smaller quantities. Here, the refrigerated section has butter salted and unsalted as well as whipped cream in non-aerosol form which is pretty easy to use as well.

The mixture, folded, plus an appropriate amount of whipped cream.

    Honestly, that's all you need other than a pinch of vanilla or whatever other flavoring you might be using. The most important part here is knowing the ratios for buttercream icing. You only really need a ratio of three to one sugar to butter. You can also use a 4:1 ratio if you prefer that, I assume the resulting frosting is a little bit sweeter, but if you're already dealing with Japanese pallets that aren't so keen and the high sugar content of American sweets, three to one is probably a better way to go.

     First you have to get the butter to room temperature, whether that's by leaving it out or microwaving it for short bursts doesn't seem to matter. Then put the butter, sugar, and vanilla together and fold them, which in this case just means squish them together. Keeping mixing and squishing them together until they become one thing.

The crumbly mixture before whipped cream.

     And the one thing they should become is a kind of like yellow crumbly mixture. When you've got that, add the whipped cream. I didn't actually measure out how much whipped cream I used, but I just made a line across the mixing bowl in whipped cream and then mixed it all the way through. Soon it became a very smooth and creamy mixture. Then you can smear or pipe, the resulting icing onto whatever cake or bread product you have available and enjoy.

Resulting buttercream icing in use. They might not be the name world's tightest spirals, but they were delicious and really hit the spot for American style cupcakes with real icing in my house.