Is it silly to try to make a huge batch of buttercream using a hand whisk rather than an electric one?

[ILickYourSlimySleeves]

....as we don't have an electric one! I am decorating DS's birthday cake on Saturday and don't know whether to buy an electric whisk to save my hands falling off?

Could I make a batch of buttercream with just a hand whisk?

Oh and if anyone knows, would smarties 'run' if stuck on buttercream overnight? Or should I add them at the last minute? Thanks

I would use a wooden spoon and cream it

Ah OK how does that work then? (I am a baking / decorating novice!)

err
you sort of rub it in with the back of the spoon

Like creaming sugar and butter to make a cake

add a spot of boiling water to the mixture and its easier

I use a wooden spoon too

you just beat it, in the garden if possible (icing sugar gets everywhere)

using soft marg like Stork or Flora makes it much easier. If you're using real butter take it out of the fridge a good few hours before.

Butter + icing sugar: icing is creamy.
Water + icing sugar: icing sets, but isn't creamy.
SO if you want it to set and hold the smarties, but still be quite creamy, use part water and part butter.

I use Stork most of the time, for budget reasons as well as not-taking-out-of-the-fridge reasons. My excuse for a while was that a girl I worked with was lactose intolerant, so taking in stork-cakes was more inclusive than butter-cakes. My mum used to bake cakes with value range soft marge when we were little and we survived. The stuff is much better now, it actively says that it's not made of trans-fats and other nasties.

I would buy a hand held electric one - they are incredibly cheap in places like Woolworths and make it so much easier. Mind you, a fabulous wonderful red Kitchenaid like this would do it so much better.

Hi Trillianastra thanks for the advice, do you have measures for how much butter and icing sugar to use? Thanks!

Just make sure the butter is soft and you don't need an electric mixer. It tells you on the side of the packet the ration of butter/icing sugar. When you first start to mix it you think the butter will never absorb all the sugar, but then it very suddenly does! You can add some cocoa powder to make chocolate butter icing. I'd add the smarties later as I think the colour will bleed out overnight.

ratio obviously

of course you can.
in fact, I've never used a whisk of any kind to make buttercream. I usually use a fork

I would add just make sure you have more icing sugar than you think. Lots more. I usually start with what seems like an appropriate amount of butter and/or water and/or milk and add icing sugar until it seems right, which uses up a lot more sugar than I was expecting. You'd think I would have worked it out by now.