I had read on here that one poster used melted chocolate chips in their buttercream instead of cocoa so that it was smoother and not grainy...
I tried that last night, adding the melted chips gradually, and once it began to taste like chocolate buttercream stopped... however the constitency changed to a weird half dough/half icing. I could ice with it, but if I wasn't careful it would come off in chunks - in fact I could actually press it onto the cake with my hands! It worked great in some ways, since it let me fill gaps perfectly, but I can't use a spatula on it much as it comes away from the cake too easily.
What did I do wrong? Should the chips have been mixed with oil or anything??
I melt the chips and add all the time (and even toss in extra cocoa powder too for really intense flavor)
I add 8oz melted Ghriadelli per regular single batch of buttercream (indydebi's recipe)
I've tried it both ways:
>adding to fats first and blending in then adding PS
>adding at end
same results either way it seemed -- a VERY stiff buttercream -- it keeps getting stiffer as chocolate cools to room temp.
Fix: add milk until soft enough to do what you want with it. May have to do this several times as it continues to stiffen from cooling.
Smooths well w/ hot spatula or Viva paper towel method.
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other things:
replace 1/2 of shortening w/ butter -- softer and easier to spread. Max substitution if going to do Viva method.
replace all of shortening w/ butter -- mongo soft -- too soft even for Viva method.
but adding milk is the easiest way (tho' not as delicious as butter!)
See I figured it was going to get really stiff - but that wasn't the problem really.
The icing was still very soft, but pliable. I could almost mold it. It worked beautifully with the hot spatula and when I left it overnight it set up to a nice hard finish that almost looked like fondant... but it fell apart and pulled away, it was like there was no 'stick' left in it. Do you think the milk would help that for next time? And will the addition of the milk not cause issues with the chocolate seizing up and turning SUPER hard, because of the water content? I was too afraid to add anything with water to it.
Ok, perfect, good to know! I'll try that next time!
I put myself into a bit of a panic because I was doing all it after midnight and for some reason forgot the seizing bit about chocolate, so I melted my chips and thought 'Hey! I'll mix in some chocolate milk syrup to make it SUPER chocolately'...yeah don't do that. As soon as the syrup hit the melted chips the whole thing solidified like ball of clay. Made for some GREAT accidental fudge though!
add the syrup AFTER you've blended the melted chocolate into the BC (and yes, I've done melted AND cocoa powder AND syrup all in on BC batch -- was going for death by chocolate flavor
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seized chocolate CAN be rescued (gee how would I know -- and if you watch Chef Irvine on Dinner Impossible it happened to him too)
melt butter -- and chop up the seized chocolate -- start adding it bit by bit to the melted butter -- add slowly enough that it has a chance to completely melt before adding more. (Irvine being in a rush did it the quick method -- threw in the butter without chopping up the seized chocolate and just stirred until it all remelted)
Some suggest using vegetable shortening instead of butter (EWWW) and if have it and could afford it cocoa butter (tho' that will make for a very soft chocolate)
of course could also chop it up and then heat up a enough cream to near boiling then pour that over to make a ganache.
but impromptu fudge is good too
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