Wedding Cupcake Buttercream

[nverland]

Wedding Cupcake Buttercream

Ingredients:

3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons whipping cream (heavy or regular)

Directions:

In a large bowl, with a hand or stand mixer, cream together sugar and butter on low speed. Mix until well blended. Increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for desired spreading/piping consistency.
Scoop into a piping bag and pipe decoratively onto cupcakes, or spread onto cupcakes as desired.

Tips:

This recipe doubles or triples well.
There is no need to sift the powdered sugar, unless you're worried that your sugar is quite lumpy.
Do not try to replace the butter with margarine or shortening- it won't work out well.
Add in color, if desired. use colored gel paste instead of liquid food coloring- then you're not messing with adding additional liquid to the perfect consistency of the frosting. Gel paste is sold at craft stores and baking supply shops.
For the cupcakes in the photograph above, they used a 1G Tip by Bakery Crafts to pipe the frosting. The Wilton 1M tip works perfectly for these too.