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Less Sweet Flour Buttercream Pudding Base – Consistency

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This visual guide shows what the pudding base for my Less Sweet Ermine Buttercream should look like after cooking. 

Less Sweet Ermine Buttercream Pudding Consistency - a Visual Guide

No. That doesn’t look like something you’d want to eat. But today is not about beautiful cakes or cupcakes. It’s about the pudding base for my Less Sweet Ermine Buttercream.

If you’re unfamiliar with my flour buttercream recipe, stop reading and go make some NOW! It’s delicately sweet, super smooth, and infinitely better than your regular American buttercream, so not something you want to miss out on. It’s easy to make to! First, you whip up a simple pudding base with flour, sugar, a pinch of salt, and some milk. Once that has cooled, you beat it into beaten butter to make the best buttercream you’ll ever taste.

If you HAVE already experienced the deliciousness of flour buttercream, read on 😉

My recipes for flour (or ermine) buttercream are among the most popular posts on my blog, because they’re awesome. However, some readers have commented that they are a bit unsure about the pudding-making part of the recipe. In particular, how they can know for sure whether the pudding base is cooked properly.

Time for Pudding Base 101! (← isn’t that the lamest 101 title ever?)

Less Sweet Ermine Buttercream Pudding Consistency - a Visual Guide

First of all, if you follow the recipe, the pudding base should come out the way you want it and you should be able to make the best buttercream ever with it.

So let’s go over the recipe’s cooking instructions first…

Recipe Cooking Instructions

1. Bring the milk-sugar-flour mixture to boiling point: heat the mixture over low heat, stirring continuously with a whisk (switch to a rubber spatula when the pudding thickens), until it starts to thicken and bubbles appear at the surface of the pudding.

Sometimes, especially as the pudding becomes thicker and you’re stirring vigorously, it’s difficult to see the bubbles. To check for bubbles, stop whisking for 2-3 seconds every now and then. If a slow, big bubble breaks through the surface of the pudding, you’ll know it’s come to the right temperature: boiling point.

2. Next, cook the pudding for 1-2 minutes: keep the pudding at that temperature for 1-2 minutes to cook off the taste of the flour. Keep stirring with your rubber spatula as you do this, scraping the sides and bottom of the pan as you go, to prevent the pudding from catching at the bottom or sides of the pan.

And then the pudding is done! Scrape it onto a plate, cover it with plastic wrap (press the plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pudding to keep a skin from forming) and allow it to cool to room temperature.

What to look for after the pudding base has cooled

  • the pudding base should stick to the plate when you hold the plate upside down for a few seconds.
  • when you touch the pudding with a finger, it shouldn’t feel sticky, just wet (first photo in this post).
  • the pudding is thick enough to hold its shape on a spoon (second photo in this post).

Note: the pudding for my original flour buttercream looks a little different, because it contains a lot more sugar. I’ll do a post about the consistency of that particular pudding next time I make some. 

Less Sweet Flour Buttercream (aka: Ermine Buttercream) - This is the less sweet version of my famous flour buttercream. It's supersmooth, because it doesn't contain powdered sugar and is instead pudding-based! | thetoughcookie.com

That’s about it. Those are the things I look for in my pudding base whenever I make flour buttercream. Easy, right? 😉

If you like this post, click here to sign up to my mailing list (and get my mini eCookbook for FREE!), share this post with your frosting-loving friends, and scroll down for a nice pin to save this post for later.

Talk soon!

4.5 from 2 reviews
Less Sweet Flour Buttercream Pudding Base
 
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Ingredients
  • 35g (or 4½ tablespoons) all-purpose flour
  • 130g (or ½ cup + 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon) granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 240ml (or 1 cup) whole milk
Instructions
  1. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Whisk together. Add the milk and whisk until combined.
  2. Place saucepan over low heat and allow the mixture to come to a boil, whisking continuously. Once the mixture starts bubbling, cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring with a rubber spatula and scraping the sides and bottom of the pan as your go. Remove from heat and stir for a minute to knock some of the heat out of the pudding.
  3. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the pudding onto a clean plate and immediately cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic wrap directly onto the pudding to keep a skin from forming. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Notes
I usually make the pudding base (and cake layers if I'm making a cake) a day ahead, so it has time to cool overnight.

 

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Comments

  1. I have been doing your recipe for forever and I love it, and I found it to be already less sweet then other recipes… but it is always better to cut down on sugar lol.
    My question is: do you still use the same ratio of butter? And do you get less buttercream, since you are putting less sugar?
    Thank you so much!
    I love your blog!

  2. Hi Nila… Thank you for the candid tutorials of your recipes… The first time I made your recipe for Flour Buttercream that was posted June 7, 2015, it was perfect!!! It topped Red Velvet cupcakes 🙂 But. the second time I made it, the pudding base did not come out like the first time… It was too thin. I didn’t want to waste it so I searched for ways to salvage it into something else… Since it was a pudding base, I decided to heat it again and added an egg, vanilla and butter and made it into Vanilla Pudding… It was on the sweet side because it was a full cup of sugar which if it turned out, the butter in your recipe would have made it a nice balance of sweetness as the buttercream recipe… but since it became something else, I then whipped up some heavy cream… folded it into the Vanilla Pudding and voila… it became my filling for Cream Puffs… And, not too sweet… Of course, I had to make the pate a choux for it which is easy and great… All in all, it turned out wonderful!!! I am going try your Less Sweet Flour Buttercream version next… Thank you again for such a good recipe and I wanted to share to those who have made the full cup of sugar version that if it was too runny, it can be saved and made into something else with a little ingenuity. 🙂

  3. Is the base something that can be made in larger batches and stored in the refrigerator until needed ?

  4. I’ve just found your blog by chance, didn’t know at first that you are also in NL! I am a full time mum and baking is one of my hobbies, though barely have any time to experiment as much as I’d like to. Anyway, I comment here because I can’t comment on the Italian meringue buttercream post. I love Italian buttercream but since my husband has a compromised immune system I want to avoid raw eggwhites. Have you tried making it with bottled pasteurised eggwhites?
    I will certainly check all your other recipes and this flour buttercream looks very tempting, too. Photography is beautiful, btw.
    Greets,

  5. Just when I thought you couldn’t teach an old dog a new trick (70-year-old seasoned baker), I learn of a simply divine icing recipe that’s only lightly sweetened and over-the-top heavenly. Where has this been all my life? I am so thankful for stumbling onto this site – thank you.