How to Keep Buttercream Cold for Cookie Decorating
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We’re in the middle of summer and buttercream doesn’t get along with heat all too well. I’m going to share how to keep buttercream cold so you can keep decorating.
Maybe your issue is that your hands are too warm to decorate cookies or maybe your buttercream keeps breaking.
This guide will teach you how to keep buttercream cold in various settings:
- how to keep buttercream cold while mixing
- how to keep buttercream cold while decorating
- how to keep buttercream cold in warm hands
- how to keep buttercream cold while drying
- how to keep buttercream cold while traveling
Let’s get started!
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How to Keep Buttercream Cold While Mixing
American buttercream is fairly easy to make; however, things can get tricky if buttercream gets too hot.
The buttercream can break, resulting in a gritty texture which is not ideal for cookie decorating.
To keep buttercream cold while mixing, here are some tips:
- If possible, keep your kitchen at a cold temperature, at least while making buttercream. You can use a mini portable air conditioner if necessary.
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- If you’re working in a hot kitchen, rather than using room temperature butter, use cold butter. The butter will come to room temperature quickly while beating. Just make sure to beat it smooth before adding the powdered sugar.
- Place the mixing bowl in the refrigerator before mixing your buttercream. I find that the freezer is too cold for buttercream but the refrigerator is perfect.
- If separating the buttercream to make multiple colors, place the bowls of buttercream, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator and only work on one bowl at a time.
- Alternatively, use a foil or metal baking dish with ice and water in it. Place your bowls of buttercream in that while you work.
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How to Keep Buttercream Cold While Decorating
Once your buttercream is in piping bags, you will want to keep them in a cold area.
You have several options for this:
- Grab a gallon Ziplock bag, fill it with water and ice cubes, and lay the piping bags on top of it. This keeps the buttercream cold and the piping bags dry.
- Fill a large bowl with water and ice. Place the buttercream piping bags into a gallon Ziplock bag and seal it, again, to keep the piping bags dry.
- Lay the piping bags on top of ice packs from the freezer.
With each of these tips above, try to keep the metal piping tip out of the cold. The metal piping tip will get colder much faster than the icing. You can wrap paper towels around the metal tips to isolate it, or use the heat from your hands to warm up the tips before you begin piping.
Alternatively, you can work in an orderly fashion:
- Pipe backgrounds that will be smoothed first for all of your cookies. The frosting will start to melt as you continue decorating, but since you will be smoothing it out, it won’t matter if they are inconsistent lines.
- Switch colors often. For instance, if six cookies have blue flowers with green stems and leaves, do three cookies with the flowers first. Then, do the other three cookies with the stems and leaves first. By the time you need the blue flowers, your icing had a chance to return to room temperature.
- Do any writing last. You want buttercream to flow easily when writing so if your buttercream is already soft, perfect!
How to Keep Buttercream Cold in Warm Hands
Piping with warm hands is not just a summer issue but can be a year long issue. To combat this, you can use any of the above tips but here are some more:
- If you use gloves to decorate your cookies, keep your box of gloves in the refrigerator or freezer.
- Make your buttercream frosting stiffer by adding more powdered sugar and/or less liquid. Your hands will heat up the buttercream to a softer consistency.
- Keep an ice pack or a frozen bottle of water nearby to place your hands onto when they start getting too hot.
- Spread your buttercream out into more icing bags. For example, keep two red icing bags half full instead of one full bag of red buttercream. You can switch back and forth if one starts to get too hot.
How to Keep Buttercream Cool While Drying
In order for buttercream sugar cookies to keep their design, they must be allowed to form a crust. This typically takes 8 hours at the least and 24-48 hours at the most.
Buttercream will take longer to crust if it is kept in too hot of an environment. Here are some tips to dry buttercream:
- Keep your cookies in the coolest room of the house. Maybe this is a basement or maybe you have air conditioning in some of your rooms.
- Make your buttercream frosting stiffer by using more powdered sugar and less to no liquid content. The softer the buttercream consistency, the longer it will take to form a crust, especially in a warmer environment.
- Allow the cookies to crust overnight, as temperatures drop when the sun goes down. You can keep a screened window open near the cookies if your house doesn’t drop in temperature too much.
Whatever you do, do not put your cookies in the freezer (and never store in the refrigerator unless you want dried out cookies) to form a crust. The frosting will freeze before it gets a chance to dry. When you defrost, the frosting will be soft as if you just piped them.
How to Keep Buttercream Cookies Cold While Traveling
The best way I have found to keep buttercream sugar cookies cold while traveling in the car is to use a large ice chest and dry ice.
Place the cookies in airtight containers that will fit inside of your ice chest. Then, pack the sides, top, and/or bottom, with dry ice.
You can typically get dry ice at the grocery store.
This method not only keeps your cookies secure, it keeps them very cold without drying them out.
Save the Tutorial for How to Keep Buttercream Cold for Cookie Decorating
If you are planning on decorating cookies during the summer heat, make sure to save this image to your cookie decorating board on Pinterest. Alternately, use any of the social sharing buttons at the top of the post to share to your favorite site.
