If you are a home baker who is turning out baked goods in your home kitchen, one of the things you worry about is how long your treats can stay on the shelf without refrigeration. Cottage laws are the governing laws for home bakers. It’s more than the list of things you can use, they also have a killer list of things you CANNOT use. Heavy whipping cream tops that list. The purpose is to not use ingredients that can harbor and grow bacteria and cause foodborne illness. If you are one of those bakers who bake for your community, you already know why we are talking about this.
So let’s pull this conversation back out of the deep and bring it back around to this recipe: a creamy, shelf-stable buttercream. What makes this shelf stable?, Well, the lack of whipping cream for one. And that’s about it. It still looks beautiful on your macs, it still can be used with flavors and colors, and is a great all-around tool in your mac-madness cupboard.
We use room temperature butter to make this, but wait–it’s not completely room temperature. We take it out of the fridge, and let it soften until, when a finger is pressed into it, an imprint will remain. It’s still very cool, but malleable.
While certainly any white chocolate chips can be used, the Van Leer White Chocolate Snaps from Orson Gygi are our favorite. They have a good flavor and are a little flatter than regular chips, so they melt more easily. Be sure to use the code sweetmacshop for a discount, if you decide to buy some.
We store ours in an airtight container in fridge, even though you don’t have to.
Which is fine. It’s fine. We’re fine.
Shelf Stable Buttercream
2 cups butter (room temperature, but still slightly cool)
145 grams white chocolate wafers (we use white chocolate Van Leer chips from Orson Gygi)
57 grams boiling water (about 2 ounces: pop that bad boy in the microwave for about one minute)
830 g powdered sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp vanilla
In a separate bowl, place Van Leer white chocolate chips. Add water to glass measuring cup and microwave until boiling. Slowly add water to wafers and use a submersion blender or a hand mixer, beat until creamy. Set aside and let cool while doing the next step.
Add butter to bowl of stand mixer (we use KitchenAid mixers, obviously). Turn to low and beat until butter starts becoming creamy.
Slowly add cooled white chocolate mixture to the butter and mix until blended. With mixer on low, slowly add one cup of powdered sugar at a time. Once all powdered sugar is mixed in, turn your mixer to medium speed and beat on high for 4-5 minutes.
Store in airtight container in fridge, even though you don’t have to.
Shelf-Stable White Chocolate Ganache Buttercream
Ingredients
- 2 cups butter (room temperature, but still slightly cool)
- 145 grams white chocolate wafers (we use White Chocolate Van Leer Chips from Orson Gygi)
- 57 grams boiling water (about 2 ounces)
- 830 grams powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Hi Barb! Do you have a buttercream recipe for those of us that can’t use butter under cottage food either? 🙂
Hi,
A water ganache is the best way to go. We will post a recipe up soon, that way you will have more options.
I can’t find the water ganache recipe, do you have a link?
Oh! Let me see if I can find it.
Hi Barb! First let me start by letting you know I had given up on macarons till I found you. Now I love making them with all your help and tips. You are truly amazing!! Yes I did do a happy dance when not 1 not 2 but all 3 trays baked perfectly!! So thank you for your inspiration and amazing tutorials. I do have one question about the white chocolate ganache buttercream, in the ingredients list it states 1/2 teaspoon salt and below that 1 teaspoon of salt but in the directions they aren’t listed (I assumed one is salt and the other vanilla) could you let me know what it’s supposed to be and when to add them.
Thank you so much
Maria
Congratulations on achieving success with our recipe–we are happy that you are making them.
And thank you for letting us know about the typo in the recipe. We’ve since fixed the directions so take a look at it for the correction. Happy Baking!
🙂 Barb
Can you post a recipe for shelf stable white chocolate water ganache?
Hi there. We have a recipe for shelf-stable white chocolate ganache here on our blog.
Hope you enjoy it.
Even though water ganache is allowed under cottage laws it is actually ironically less shelf-stable than a ganache made with heavy cream. High water content greatly shortens the shelf life of ganache. That’s why some chocolatiers will add invert sugar to their ganache to bind up the water and have lower water activity. If you research “ganache balancing” there is a lot of good info on how to create a shelf stable recipe.
Hi, Yes, its the great cottage law debate. 🙂
Hi there….I don’t see the recipe?? Not sure where I’m missing it??