White Chocolate Buttercream

Chocolate enthusiasts may dismiss it for its lack of cacao content, but white chocolate certainly has a place in the world of pastry. Its light color and subtle flavor make it an excellent blank canvas for highlighting complementary ingredients like bold, tangy raspberry, earthy green tea, and fragrant vanilla. Sweet white chocolate provides wonderful balance when paired with cacao nibs or bittersweet chocolate. It can even be roasted, which caramelizes the sugars for another flavor entirely.

At its purest, white chocolate is composed of cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, and usually vanilla. The cocoa butter is extracted from ground cacao nibs, which are roughly equal parts cacao solids and fat (i.e., the butter). Refined cocoa butter is filtered from any residual cacao and deodorized to neutralize the oil's flavor, whereas natural cocoa butter retains a chocolatey aroma. White chocolate can be made with either type — or, in the case of poor-quality white chocolate, nearly none, which can cause a waxy mouthfeel.

You'll need a whopping 12 ounces of white chocolate for this recipe, so the type you choose will make an impact! For the tastiest buttercream, you'll want to opt for a white chocolate that you enjoy eating on its own, preferably not baking chips. Valrhona is widely loved by chefs worldwide; El Rey's Icoa is renowned for its distinct chocolate essence. Lindt white chocolate is especially creamy with lots of vanilla flavor and is widely available.

White chocolate is prone to clumping or burning if heated too aggressively. Chop it very finely and melt it on top of a double boiler or in the microwave at reduced power, heating and stirring at regular intervals just until smooth. Be sure to let it cool significantly before using it in the recipe to avoid melting the butter.

This white chocolate buttercream frosting is made in the American style by beating butter with powdered sugar. It's super easy to make and is quite sweet, something to keep in mind when deciding what to match it with. Like all buttercream, you'll want to serve it at room temperature for the ultimate melt-in-your-mouth experience.