Bakery Shop Mock Cream

[kah22]

I sometimes buy pastries from local bakeries and some of those contain what you might call 'mock cream,' 'artificial cream,' I just don't know the proper term

However, when I make my sponge and such like I use a basic buttercream but there always seems to be that little bit of graininess left no matter how long, or at what speed I mix. I want to take my pastry cream to the next level, to obtain that bakery shop mock-artificial cream look and taste

So I carried out an Internet search and found several recipes: the most popular been creaming your butter and sugar until light and fluffy then slowly add a small quantity of boiling water with the addition of a little milk until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth, adding vanilla extract at the end

Another popular one uses a basic buttercream. A recipe something like this: • 500 mls milk, 250 g sugar, 50 g cornflour, 500 g butter, 1 tsp vanilla essence

Yet another one reverts to using gelatine. But I can't imagine this: 250g unsalted butter, cubed, (75g) caster sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 2 tsp gelatine powder, sprinkled over 1/2 cup of cold water and let swell until paste-like, 1/2 tsp cream of tartar. I can't figure this one, although it does have the advantage of using less sugar!

Are there any bakers out there who would share that bakery shop mock cream recipe. I don't want to be making batches of the stuff just to dump it!

As always many thanks for your replies

Kevin

Oh God. Why not just use real cream? It's much nicer.

Sorry. Not helpful. The stuff you get in shops is laden with preservatives and that's probably the missing ingredient in terms of why what you're making doesn't taste the same.

If you want smooth, stiff and sweet you could do worse than folding some melted white chocolate into stiff whipped double cream (about 100g per 300ml cream). You'll need to work fast before it sets.

Can you talk us through your buttercream process? I don't understand what you mean by "grainy" in that context unless you're using the wrong sugar.

I use the Hummingbird recipe which is:
250g sifted icing sugar
80g cubed butter at room temperature
25ml full fat milk, mixed with ...
... a couple of drops of vanilla extract

Beat the sugar and butter together thoroughly, then add the milk gradually, still beating on a low setting. Once all the milk is added, turn up the speed and beat for several minutes until it's fluffy. You will observe the colour getting lighter and lighter.

Is your butter REALLY soft ,to the point of melting?

Why not just use pastry cream, if you want something more stable than fresh cream? It's way more delicious and really easy to make.

The old synthetic cream in bakeriex is like birds dream topping,