Brandy Buttercream

Brandy butter shouldn’t be just for mince pies and Christmas pudding. My recipe to turn it into brandy buttercream makes it perfect for cakes too.

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My final new recipe is inspired by the Christmas classic, brandy butter. It’s something I hadn’t tried until I met Jon and I’ll admit that until I tried it I was unconvinced that I’d like it (I’m not really a huge fan of brandy as a drink in it’s own right). He eventually convinced me to give it a go on my mince pies and I was converted, it’s absolutely delicious.

My brandy buttercream uses the same basic ingredients of butter, icing sugar and brandy but it has a softer texture making it perfect for icing cakes (although it does go very well with a mince pie too 🙂 ).

To get the brandy flavour coming through you need to add quite a bit of brandy to your buttercream. If you’ve ever tried adding a lot of liquid to buttercream before you’ll know that if you add too much it’ll separate and go lumpy. The secret is to add it slowly, no more than a teaspoon at a time and to make sure it’s fully incorporated before you add more.

When I’m making brandy buttercream I prefer to switch to hand mixing when I add the brandy, it gives me more control over the whole thing and I’ve found that it always goes well if I do.

Brandy Buttercream

Brandy butter shouldn't be just for mince pies and Christmas pudding. My recipe to turn it into brandy buttercream makes it perfect for cakes too.

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Active Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 12 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

• 250 g butter - soft at room temperature
• 500 g icing sugar
• 90 ml brandy

INSTRUCTIONS

• Beat your butter (250g) in an electric mixer at a low speed until soft.
• Add your icing sugar (500g) and beat until fully combined. I prefer to add my icing sugar a little at a time to stop it flying all over the kitchen!
• Once the butter and sugar are combined add your brandy (100ml) 1 tsp at a time. Ensure that each addition is fully combined before adding more. I prefer to mix in the brandy by hand rather than using the electric mixer.
• Enjoy!

NOTES

Makes enough for 12 cupcakes or to cover and fill a 20cm layer cake.

Take a look at my mix-and-match cupcake index to find lots of different flavour cupcake sponges to serve this on, as well as lots of other buttercream recipe inspiration.

Adding the brandy may make your buttercream a little soft. If it does then pop it into the fridge to firm up a little before using.

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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Serving: 1cupcake | Calories: 339kcal | Carbohydrates: 41.9g | Protein: 0.1g | Fat: 17.1g | Saturated Fat: 10.9g | Sugar: 41.8g

Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.

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Course: Dessert

Keyword: Buttercream, Frosting, Gluten-Free, Icing

Author: Charlotte Oates