How do I achieve white buttercream?

[lucysmam]

Or some sort of white icing to be 'clouds' on rainbow buns (with those fizzy belts as rainbows).

If not possible, I'll buy a couple of tubs of ready made vanilla icing.

Italian or Swiss meringue buttercream is the whitest I've ever managed, but never perfectly white. Much tastier than normal buttercream too.

Also, buying more expensive butter can help as it is sometimes less yellow.

After a quick google there are videos about making white buttercream, but it dawned on me, could you make meringues instead?

@BananaFace5 they're for 5-10 year olds...I have no idea if they'll like meringues or not!

@Stroan I will google, thank you.

You need to either beat the absolute living daylights out of the butter before very VERY slowly adding the icing sugar (and beating to death in between additions too). That will get you the lightest buttercream you can make without any changes. You can also try substituting up to half the butter for something like which would lighten the colour before you start beating. But I don’t suggest using 100% Trex as it will be very greasy. There’s also “icing whitener” but a) I’ve no idea how readily available it is and b) it’s probably something not very good for you (although I’m not sure buttercream is classified as a healthfood yet anyway.....)

Don't know the answer but I'd use a jar of Fluff for ease and cloudiness

Something like Trex
My phone deletes things it thinks I’ve spelt wrong apparently!

Use stork and whip it with icing sugar using a good electric mixer for a full 10 mins.

It's the tiny air bubbles that make it look pale not so much the colour of the product you start off with.

Definitely whip the bejesus out of the butter before adding the icing sugar. Lighter it gets in consistency will match the lightening in colour. Plus it tastes heavenly.
Also another vote for Italian meringue frosting, similar to old fashioned American boiled frosting recipes.
Also pale butter to start with ofc.

Yes president is much much paler than kerrygold for instance.

How do you make the Italian buttercream?

I can guarantee most kids love meringues. I made these recently for a buffet and the kids aged 5 upwards couldn't get enough of them.

I've heard of people using trex, I've never tried it though - not sure what it would taste like, although you could flavour it heavily with vanilla.

What about royal icing (add a bit of glycerine so it's not too hard) - you could pipe it into cloud shapes?

use real butter and beat the crap out of it - liturally around 7 or 8 mins in a kenwood style mixer

To get fluffier add a small amount of milk around 10 ml, into the icing for 12 large buns

Yup, whip the crap out of it.

Another idea, would marshmallow fluff work?

Thinking about marshmallows - would those tiny white ones work, stuck on with icing or white chocolate? I've seen people make sheep cupcakes with them and it gave quite a "fluffy" effect

Swiss meringue buttercream. Easy to do and very light and fluffy. Tastes amazing too

Add a very tiny amount of purple food colouring to make the buttercream really white - it cancels out the yellow of the butter.

I follow lots of baking accounts on Instagram and they all use icing whitener. I can't remember the name of the brand most of them use (and can't find the bloody posts now!) but it definitely shouldn't compromise on flavour.

The Wilton whitener is the best icing whitener buts it's normally only available online and can be a pain to get. To he honest Id only really use a whitener if it's for a wedding cake, for kids cloud cupcakes whipping the life out of it (15 mins on whipping butter alone then slowly adding icing sugar) should be more than sufficient :)