Let me tell you about this burnt caramel buttercream frosting, you guys. It’s not very sweet. It’s not the kind of frosting you’d want to eat off a spoon. If you’re looking for a sweeter, less rich version, you’ll want to try my fluffy caramel frosting.
No, this buttercream’s main reason for being is for spreading on chocolate stout cake. On this cake, this buttercream is magical and perfect. It’s also the combination I served to Anthony Bourdain back in 2008. Check out the stout cake recipe to hear that story.
For ease of browsing, see all my icing and frosting recipes here.
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Burnt Caramel Buttercream, At a Glance
✅Skill Level: Advanced
✅Skills: Cooking a very dark caramel, making a sugar syrup, making a French buttercream
✅Type: French Buttercream
✅Number of Ingredients: 6
✅Prep Time: 20 minutes
✅Cook Time: 15 minutes
✅Yield: about 4 cups
Jump Straight to the Recipe
Why Bother Making Something Called Burnt Caramel Buttercream?
The main reason to make this is because it is the perfect complement to a stout cake. The toasty notes in the stout are echoed in the very dark caramel in the buttercream.
And while this isn’t my favorite frosting to eat by the spoonful, it is absolute perfection on a toasty, stouty, chocolate cake.
There’s a very short ingredient list for this buttercream.
It does require a bit of finesse, and you have to play chicken with a pan of molten sugar, taking it as dark as you possibly can.
Some people might not be up for those shenanigans, and that’s totally fine. I think ermine frosting would be a great compliment to the chocolate stout cake. Here’s the recipe for my basic ermine buttercream.
Do You Really Burn the Caramel?
No, but you do take it to a dark mahogany color.
The caramel will smoke some, so it may burn your eyes, but the caramel itself doesn’t burn because once you get it to the right color, you set the bottom of the pan down in a bowl of ice water for a few seconds.
That knocks the heat in the pan back enough to keep it from continuing to cook while you pour it into your mixer.
So make sure if you’re going to make this caramel buttercream that you have an ice bath ready.
Making the Buttercream, Long Form Video
I have a long-form video that shows making this frosting in real time should you want that level of detail.
You can watch it on YouTube: “Burnt” Caramel Buttercream for Chocolate Stout Cake. I made this video back when there was a Google +. Remember that?
I actually got an email from a guy a few hours before I was going live. He had had some issues making this buttercream, so I addressed his questions in the video.
I heard back from him afterwards, and this is part of what he wrote:
A huge thank-you for the incredibly helpful video demonstrating how to make the burnt caramel buttercream. All the tricks and techniques were extremely helpful. And I especially appreciate your answering some of my specific questions during the demo. About a week ago, I came across your website and your recipe for the chocolate stout cake while I was Googling for some St. Patrick’s Day desserts, and so it really was crazily serendipitous timing that I e-mailed you with questions literally an hour or two before your demo….
…Again, many, many thanks for your incredibly helpful tips and for the excellent demo video. I really appreciate it and look forward to making this buttercream work next time!
–David from Montana
Pretty cool, huh?!
How To Make This Frosting, Step by Step
As I said earlier, this burnt caramel buttercream has a fairly short list of ingredients. Let’s meet them, shall we?
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You’ll need:
- 7-8 egg yolks (you’re looking for 4 oz)
- both corn syrup and sugar (a little water is mixed in with the sugar in the image up there)
- vanilla extract mixed with espresso powder
- butter
- salt (not pictured)
Here is a basic outline of how to make this caramel buttercream:
The video will be more instructive, but in broad strokes, you
- whip the eggs and salt together
- stream in boiling corn syrup
- stream in the dark caramel
- whip until just warm
- add the butter a bit at a time.
You’ll end up with an incredibly smooth caramel version of French buttercream.
Enjoy!
More Delicious Buttercream Recipes
If you love European-style buttercream, you may want to check out my Swiss mint buttercream. It is smooth and silky, and it tastes like a buttermint in icing form!
Another great buttercream to try is ermine frosting. It’s the traditional frosting for red velvet cake, and it’s one of my favorites for any chocolate cake.
This mocha frosting is also an excellent option for chocolate cake.
Questions?
If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.
Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.
If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.
A Note About Measurements
My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.
For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.
I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.
This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
Love This Buttercream? Please Rate and Review. Thanks!
It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.
You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.
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Thank you so much for taking the time!
Burnt Caramel Buttercream
Video
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Ingredients
- 4 ounces egg yolks 7-8
- 5.5 oz granulated sugar
- 5.5 oz light corn syrup
- 1 pound butter 4 sticks, cool but soft, cut into 1 tablespoon pieces
- ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon espresso powder optional but awesome
Instructions
- Have a bowl of ice water ready, large enough to dip the pan you caramelize the sugar in. Set aside.
- Place yolks and the salt in your mixer bowl fitted with the whip attachment.
- Beat the yolks and salt on medium speed.
- In a small saucepan bring corn syrup to a full rolling boil, and then slowly stream it into your beating yolks. Pour it slowly right down the inside of the bowl. Try to keep it off the whisk so it ends up in the icing, not on the sides of your bowl. Increase speed to high.
- Heat sugar and about 1/4 cup of water to a boil, stirring to dissolve all the sugar.
- Bring it up to a boil, slap on the lid and let the steam wash any sugar crystals off the side of the pan.
- Remove the lid and turn the heat to high. Once the sugar starts to color, you can swirl the pan to keep the color even.
- When the sugar is very light amber, turn the heat down to medium. At this point, you can stir the caramel with a wooden spoon (most of the crystals have broken down sufficiently that they won’t recrystallize). Take the sugar to a dark caramel. It will start to smoke a little and your eyes will sting. That’s how you know it’s done.
- Take the pan off the stove and briefly (no more than 3 seconds or so) dunk the bottom of the pan into ice water. This should cool things off enough to keep your sugar from continuing to cook while you're doing the next step.
- Once you’ve dunked your pan, slowly pour the caramel into the still-beating yolk/corn syrup mixture. Pour it in a thin stream right down the inner surface of the bowl so you don’t sling it all over the sides of your pan. Whip until just about body temperature.
- Add in the cool butter, a bit at a time, along with the optional espresso powder.
- Beat until light and fluffy.
- This frosting is enough to generously frost the top and sides of a 9" chocolate stout cake with about 1 cup leftover. You can also choose to torte, fill and frost your cake, in which case you'll probably use all the frosting.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Nutrition
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And there you have it. Enjoy this caramel buttercream friends.
Thank you for spending some time with me today.
Take care, y’all.
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Hi there,
I’m planning on using this as filling for a two layer un-iced “crazy cake” (no eggs, butter or milk) which is about as dense as gingerbread.
Any problem making half a batch? I was wondering if that would jeopardize the sugar/water/hopefully caramel
Don’t have a mixer- can I use a cuisine-art? I do have an immersion blender apparatus with a beater on it but would not be able to keep it beating while dealing with the caramel. Do I need to keep beating the eggs, salt and corn syrup the whole time before the caramel goes in? From the video it looks like yes.
Can I put this filling on the cake the day before serving if it’s kept in a relatively cool room?
Thank you so much, Gretchen
Hi, Gretchen! Yes, you can make a half batch with no problem. If dealing with an odd number of yolks, just round up. You will get the best results using a stand mixer, and barring that, a standard hand mixer. You can use the immersion blender with the whip attachment, although you may need a buddy to whip while you’re pouring the caramel into the yolks. Keep in mind that I developed this buttercream specifically to go with the stout cake, so it may not be a great fit for your wacky cake. I do have what is basically a butterscotch wacky cake that has a butterscotch buttercream that you may want to try. You basically make a butterscotch sauce, cool it, and then whip in cream cheese and powdered sugar. https://pastrychefonline.com/butterscotch-sheet-cake/ If you do want to go with the burnt caramel buttercream, and you want to use an appliance you already have, your best bet is the immersion blender with the whisk attachment. A Cuisinart won’t whip in the necessary air to make a nice, spreadable texture, and the friction will cause the buttercream to heat back up.
As far as beating eggs, salt and corn syrup the whole time: no you don’t have to do it the whole time, but you do want to get the eggs to a pretty billowy consistency before adding the caramel, so you’re looking at probably about 5 minutes or so of beating before adding the caramel.
Since the caramel buttercream has egg yolks in it, it’s best to refrigerate your cake until maybe 1-2 hours before serving. That way, your cake and frosting can come up to cool room temperature so the frosting will be smooth and creamy rather than hard straight-from-the-fridge. If you make the butterscotch frosting, you should be fine leaving it at a cool room temp for a day before serving. Store your leftovers in the fridge, though.
I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, respond here or email me for a faster response at [email protected] 🙂
You are just amazing! Thanks so much for your reply.
I am going with your recommendation for butterscotch icing for all the reasons you mentioned- equipment, suitability, storage.
I was considering the burnt caramel initially because I was concerned about too much sweetness. (My wacky cake recipe calls for 1 1/4 cps flour and 1 cup white sugar, which for me is very sweet.) I think I will just cut down the sugar in the cake recipe to 1/2 cup and go with the butterscotch frosting. (It will not be iced. Frosting is only for the filling.)
I’ll let you know how it turns out- and again, thank you so much for all your info and your amazingly speedy, detailed reply
Gretchen
Please do let me know how it turns out. Happy to help, Gretchen!
Hi Jenni. Absolutely loving your blog-like explanation on everything in regards to the recipe. So well thought and written.
Also, this recipe is the first I have heard of and I am so intrigued to make it for my birthday. Was wondering if corn syrup could be subsituted for something else? Maybe Glucose syrup?
Thank you
Hi, AnnLisa! I’m so happy you’re going to give this recipe a go. I love this buttercream for rich chocolate cake. So good. If you have glucose, you can absolutely sub it 1:1 with the corn syrup. Please let me know if I can help in any other way, and Happy pre-Birthday!
I’m always on the hunt for a not-too-sweet frosting recipe that I can adapt to use vegan butter substitute (I usually use Earth Balance or Country Crock plant-based). American buttercream is my usual standby since I know it works and it’s not as complicated as any of the European versions. Do you think this recipe would work with a vegan butter sub? Thanks! Looks delish!
Hi, Deeds! I happen to have some Country Crock plant butter in the fridge, so I checked the consistency at fridge temperatures. Seems much softer than cow milk butter, so I think I’d modify the recipe to add the Country Crock straight from the fridge so the texture of the finished frosting is spreadable. I cannot say for sure that it will work, but keeping the plant butter chilled should help. Let me know if you give it a try!
Thanks so much for your thoughts! I ended up using Earth Balance, straight from the fridge as you suggested, and I think it turned out right, but I’m not quite sure how I feel about the finished product I kind of feel like your facial expression from the video… Going to let it grow on me a bit and see how it goes with the cake I’m baking tomorrow (devils food)!
Yes, it’s not a frosting to eat straight up. The devil’s food will thank you though!
Jenni, this post is terrific from top to bottom. Now I just need to get to the bottom of the cake plate! It was a delight to hang with you…hugs from NorCal!
Brooks, thank you! You seriously need to make this cake. You will be happier than anyone! lol You’re the best, and I always appreciate your presence in the peanut gallery:)
Can’t believe I neglected to mention your cake! (I was distracted by scrolling up to look at the photos again… and again.)
Thank you so much! I have been resisting and resisting figuring out how to make my photos look pretty, and I have finally given in. I’m glad that you like them. 🙂
Your thoughts about Scattergories for cooking made me smile! (So did the serendipitous timing on your HOA.) Google+ is a pretty amazing place.
It really is! I don’t know why I’m surprised when these serendipitous events happen because it seems to be the norm. Love it!
Oh, my gosh…the trifecta of dessert components: chocolate, caramel and buttercream! I’m thinking this needs to make a trip to Mixed next fall 🙂 And I have to second David’s thanks…you are a wealth of knowledge and so very approachable!
I’m always happy to share what I know, Liz! And this is just So Seriously Yummy! Not sure about Mixed. I’m on the Mixed fence right now…
What a totally gorgeous cake!
Thank you so much, Jen! It’s probably my favorite chocolate cake combo. 🙂