The One Tool Needed For Vibrant Buttercream, Without Loads Of Food Dye
When you're making buttercream frosting and want the color to be something other than off-white, food coloring is a must. Any type of food coloring — gel, liquid, or powder — can effectively dye your buttercream, however, many bakers opt for the gel. Gel food coloring is highly concentrated, and that means it'll make your frosting more vibrant. Liquid and powdered food coloring on the other hand will always yield pastel or lighter-colored results.
Even if you use gel dye, adding more food coloring than the bottle or tube suggests could easily alter the taste and consistency. Red food coloring especially can turn frosting bitter, and even if you invest in the flavorless kind, too much can easily make it go from creamy to watery. The good news is, there's a way to achieve bright or darker-colored frosting without having to use extra dye. All you need is a tool that you might already have in your kitchen: an immersion blender.
How an immersion blender can change your frosting
To make buttercream frosting, typically you use a stand or hand mixer to blend the ingredients together and ensure the food coloring is properly distributed throughout. If you want the colors to be more vibrant, however, you'll want to use an immersion blender on it too. According to the scientist behind a popular baking TikTok account, this one extra step will intensify the color of your buttercream for two reasons. First, it removes the air in the buttercream, and more importantly, it improves homogenization.
@sugarologie101 Replying to @diamondsbylau
As explained in a follow-up to the first viral video, by removing the majority of the air and allowing the food dye to fully combine with the liquid in the frosting, the colors appear more saturated. The content creator also noted that using an immersion blender will slightly alter the texture by reducing the volume by 16%, resulting in a denser frosting, and will give it a glossier consistency.
It works best on 'emulsion-based' buttercreams
As showcased in the TikTok video, if you try to use an immersion blender on American buttercream, you won't notice as much of a difference in color. The reason it doesn't work as well is simply that American buttercream isn't an emulsion. While French, Italian, and Swiss meringue buttercream come together by emulsifying a liquid (in the form of eggs whites) and a fat (in the form of butter), American buttercream is made primarily of powdered sugar and butter. Milk and vanilla extract are sometimes added to American buttercream, but the consistency of the frosting isn't dependent on these liquids emulsifying with the butterfat.
The immersion blender hack, therefore, doesn't have as much of an effect on American buttercream because there's nothing to emulsify. It will remove the air in the frosting, which will slightly intensify the colors, but with very little liquid for the dye to homogenize with, the buttercream still may not be as vibrant as you'd like.