Butter Cream

What is Butter Cream??

Buttercream is a type of icing or filling used either inside cakes, as a coating, or as decoration.

Also used to decorate or fill cakes, desserts, roulades and petit four. Butter cream can be flavoured in many ways, either with alcohol, essences, fruit, nuts, nougat, chocolate etc.

Varieties
Simple buttercream

Simple buttercream is made by creaming together fats (butter, margarine, or vegetable oil shortening) and powdered sugar to the desired consistency and lightness. Typically twice as much sugar as butter by weight is used. Flavorings, in the form of extracts and oils, may also be added. Some recipes call for cream, non-fat milk solids, flour, or meringue powder.

Other varieties

French buttercream (also known as pâte à bombe-based buttercream or common buttercream) is made with whipped egg yolks. Custard-based buttercream is prepared by beating together pastry cream and softened butter, and may be additionally sweetened with extra confectioners' sugar.

Meringue-based buttercream

There are three types of meringue-based buttercream: Italian, Swiss, and American. The Italian and Swiss meringues must be cooled to room temperature in order not to melt the butter (which has a variable melting point below 35 °C (95 °F) as it is subsequently beaten in. The American meringue buttercream is a no-cook method which means there is no risk of melting the butter.

The most used butter creams are Italian butter  cream, German butter cream, French butter cream.
Italian butter cream (Italian meringue based)

Italian butter cream which is based on a boiled meringue and butter. This method is very stable, has an excellent shelf-life and is easy to produce. Fondant and butter mixture is not classified as an italian meringue. It has poor eating qualities and is lacking flavour.
Recipe
Caster Sugar              1000 gr
Water                         300   gr
Glucose                     50     gr
Egg Whites                200  gr
Unsalted Butter         1500 gr
Vanilla                       10    gr
Salt                            5      gr
How to make Italian butter cream

1. Place caster sugar, water, glucose into a clean stainless steel pan, over a low heat, stirring to boil. 
2. At the boil stop stirring and turn up the heat untill the sugar reached a temperature of 121c. wash down the sides of the pan from time to time to avoid crystallisation of the sugar.
3. Commence whisking the meringue when the sugar reached boiling point. 
4. When the sugar reached 121c turn the machine down to low speed and slowly pour the hot syrup slowy in and turn the machine to fast speed and whisk untill cold.
5. Lastly add the softed butter and flavours into the meringue and cream.

German butter cream(Custard Based)

German butter cream is based on a Créme patisserie. This method is particular good as Créme is standard for most producers of cakes and desserts. therefore it is excellent to use in emergencies. Shelf-life is limited due to the egg content.
Recipe
Milk                    500gr
Caster sugar        120gr
Corn flour           40 gr
Vanilla flavour   1cover
Egg Yolk             1 pcs
Unsalted butter   660 gr
How to make German butter cream

1. Mix a little cold milk with the corn flour and the egg in a bowl.
2. Boil the remaining milk pour on to the slurry and return to the pan
3. Re-boil whilst stirring.
4. Strain and whisk cold
5. When the custard become cold add into the creamy butter

French butter cream(Sabayon Based)

French butter cream is based on a sabayon. It is difficult to make due to the warming of the egg-mixture. This when overheated coagulates and small egg lumps are visible in the cream. The butter cream is very light and has particular good eating qualities it is very suitable to use for petit fours.
Recipe
Eggs                    175gr
Sugar                   175gr
Vanilla                10gr
Salt                     a pinch
Unsalted butter    430gr
How to make French butter cream

1. Whisk eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt in a water bath to 45c (Sabayon)
2. Place into the mixing machine and whisk cold.
3. Creamy the butter to the same consistency and temperature as the egg and fold both together.

Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart

A lemon tart is a dessert dish, a variety of tart. It has a pastry shell with a lemon flavored filling.

In the UK, lemon tart consists of a pastry case (often made in a fluted tart tin) containing a baked lemon custard (usually composed of eggs, sugar, lemon juice and cream). Usually recipes include blind-baking before adding the custard. Sometimes the tart is dusted with icing sugar prior to serving.

Alternatively, the lemon filling can be cooked in a saucepan and then added to the baked pastry case.

A dessert very similar to the lemon tart is the lemon pie, usually served for dessert, made with a crust usually made of shortcrust pastry and lemon custard filling. The lemon pie is prepared with a bottom pie crust. This pie is different from the lemon meringue pie, which has meringue on top, so where no upper crust is used, as in a cherry pie.

Main Ingrediant

• Sweet short pastry shell
• Lemon cream

Short Pastry

Short pastry is one of European origin variety. Short pastry doughs will have a short texture, Meaning that when they are mixed the dough can be pulled apart easily rather than stretched untill it broke.

Short pastry can be savoury or sweet.

Savoury short pastry will contain fat up to 50% of the flour weight, salt and water. some enriched doughs can contain eggs that replace water content.

Sweet short pastry can be made from 2 separate formulas:

• 2:1:1 - 2 Flour: 1Sugar: 1Fat
• 3:2:1 - 3 Flour: 2Sugar: 1Fat

Both of these formulas will use eggs or water as a binding agent in the closing stages of mixing.

How to make lemon tart

Equibment you'll need:

• Tart Shell
• bowl
• weighting scale 
• sauce pan
• baking tray
• mixing machine

Sweet Short Pastry Recipe:

• cold butter      250 gr
• Sugar              125 gr
• Eggs                1 pcs
• Flour               500 gr 

Method:

1. Pre-heated oven at 180c
2. mix flour, sugar and butter till incorporate crumb and add eggs. knead till they form a ball.
3. brush your tart shell with butter or spray cooking oil.
4. When ready to make pie, roll dough out as you would any crust. Do not let sit out, or handle excessively allowing to soften. Easiest to work with if firm.
5. bake at 180c for 14-16minutes.

Lemon Cream Recipe

• Lemon Juice      100gr
• Sugar                 130gr
• Eggs                   2pcs
• Eggs yolk           1pcs
• Butter                 180gr
• Gelatin               1sheet (optional)

Method:

1. Soak gelatin in a bowl of icy cold water.
2. In a sauce pan warm lemon juice.
3. In a bowl beat eggs, sugar and whisk them till they well combined.
4. pour the warm lemon juice to the eggs mixture. keep stirring the mixture to prevent the eggs to be cooked when pouring the lemon juice. 
5. pour the mixture back to the sauce pan on low heat and keep stiring.
6. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly until thickened. Mixture will resemble pudding. 
7. Turn of the heat and add butter and gelatin(optional).

Pour your lemon cream to the baked tart shell and ready to serve. you can either serve lemon tart with meringue on top, Fresh whipped cream, fresh fruit or berry, any ice cream of your like. Maybe just serve them alone...

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