Air Bubbles In Your Buttercream? Grab This Simple Kitchen Tool

Whether it's committing mistakes when making a batch of rice or overcooking pasta on Italian night, it always seems to be the most straightforward of culinary endeavors that trip us up. A luscious buttercream frosting might only require a few pantry staples to sweeten up cake, but the texture has to be on point to achieve that creamy mouthfeel. The true beauty of buttercream lies in its ultra-smooth veneer which gives our favorite desserts their sleek allure.

It seems simple to whip together, but anyone who has ever made buttercream frosting knows how challenging it can be to achieve a velvet consistency which doesn't contain any pesky air bubbles. An unexpected gadget in your bathroom can help people reduce lumpiness in buttercream frosting, but for removing pockets of air you don't need to look any further than your kitchen drawers. The Takeout asked Kristina Lavallee, owner of The Cake Girl, if folks could eliminate air bubbles with a plain old spatula. She said, "Yes, you absolutely can, and it is recommended that you remove the air bubbles out from the buttercream before and during application. It ensures a nice smooth finish."

Not overmixing buttercream in the first place is the ideal way to keep air bubbles out of your frosting, but when mistakes happen, the simplest of kitchen tools comes to the rescue. "When you use your spatula in a back and forth motion against the side of the bowl, you are pressing out and popping the small bubbles, bringing the frosting together so it's nice and smooth," Lavallee said.

It doesn't take anything more than the most common of kitchen tools and some arm muscle to expunge air bubbles from buttercream frosting, but some folks prefer to have machines do the work. Lavallee mentioned a couple alternative methods for removing those vexing globules of air from buttercream that allow your arm to take a break. "Another trick I love to use is a paddle attachment on a mixer, putting it on the lowest mixer speed and letting it run for a couple of minutes," she said. "The slow mixing pulls the extra air out of the buttercream instead of whipping more into it."

One other hack some bakers use to eliminate air bubbles is to give the buttercream a few short stints in the microwave. The idea is that by softening the mix, the air bubbles will burst when lightly mixed with a fork. However, Lavallee isn't a fan of this technique as it leaves the consistency to chance. "Although some bakers do prefer this method, I do not recommend microwaving buttercream because it could make it uneven in texture, too soft in some spots, and too firm in others," she said. "Just using a spatula and a little patience will give you a much better result and control over your final product."