Bakers, help - think my buttercream has split!

[hudyerwheesht]

Sorry, posting for traffic as it's a baking emergency ahead of DD's birthday tomorrow and this has never happened before.

I normally don't have any problems with buttercream but I've just made a batch of chocolate buttercream for filling and covering a cake and it I think I can see the separated fat plus it looks a little grainy. Tastes ok, I think. Chocolate buttercream is always so sweet its hard to tell if I've beaten it enough.

I didn't even know buttercream could split (ganache is usually my headache) - is this what's happened? Can I rescue it?

My method is to beat the butter, add icing sugar and cocoa if using it then add some milk and beat for ages until its fluffy. I can't stand sweet, grainy buttercream and find this method, courtesy of the Hummingbird Bakery, book works well - usually.

I need it to be smooth enough to do a crumb coat, then normal coat before I cover with the chocolate ganache (a drip cake, basically) - do I need to make another batch? I wasn't planning on doing it until later so its back in the fridge until I planned to take it out to re-whip before using. Will the fridge time help?

Sorry for multitude of panicked questions, baking emergency as I said...

You need to warm it up - by the sounds of it the butter was too cold so it’s split.

You can carefully heat the sides of the bowl slightly with a hair dryer or fill a bigger bowl with warm water, put the buttercream bowl in it to warm it up and beat again.

Once the buttercream starts to melt at the edge of the bowl it’s ready to try beating again.

Add a teaspoon of hot water and beat it to within an inch of its life.

If that doesn't work you could try straining the fats from the solids and reshipping to make a new emulsion.

It's probably too hot or too cold.
So, if your kitchen is roasting, put it in the fridge for a bit, and then rebeat.
If your kitchen is cool, put it in a bowl if warm water for a bit, and rebeat.

Yes a teaspoon of hot water and beat with electric whisk.

Thanks. I can't work out if it's too hot or too cold in the kitchen, doesn't seem either tbh.Might try the hot water addition method...

Probably too cold then - fridge temp butter.

Maybe, but I had the butter out for a couple of hours and it was soft when I started. Mind you I did add some colder butter when I realised I hadn't used enough.

Argh, it didn't work. Neither did sitting the mixing bowl in a bigger pan with hot water.

I've just put in back in the fridge and through the plastic tub it looks whiter than ever. It looks like chocolate mousse or slightly melted chocolate ice-cream. Fuck. I'm hoping to salvage it to use for the fill/crumb coat then make a fresh batch for the final coat. With the ganache to make too I predict a stressful evening in the kitchen.