Ermine Frosting
Ermine Frosting is the Goldilocks of buttercreams. It’s less sweet than American Buttercream and a little sweeter than Meringue Buttercream. This old-fashioned frosting is juuuust right!
All About Ermine Frosting:
Ermine frosting is known by many names; boiled-milk frosting, roux frosting, Heritage frosting and flour frosting to name a few.
Whatever you call it, this is an old-fashioned frosting recipe that starts with a pudding base. Then you add the pudding to whipped butter to make a light, luscious and silky smooth cake frosting.
Because the sugar is cooked into the “pudding” base, there is no grittiness in this frosting. What you have is a creamy, airy buttercream with a lovely milky flavor.
Ermine is the traditional frosting for Red Velvet cake. I love to use it as the base for Malted Chocolate Frosting and to frost Malted Milk Blondies. Use coconut milk in the pudding to make Coconut Rum Frosting.
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour – The flour thickens the milk to create the pudding base.
- Sugar – Sugar sweetens the frosting.
- Milk – Is the base for the pudding mixture.
- Vanilla/Salt – Together they balance the flavor of the frosting.
- Butter – Use unsalted butter to control the amount of salt in the recipe.
How to make Ermine Frosting:
- Cook the flour milk and sugar together over medium heat in a small saucepan.
- Cook the flour mixture until it is thick like pudding.
- Whip the butter until it’s light and aerated
- Add the pudding and mix it until combined.
- Switch to the whisk.
- Whip until the frosting is light and fluffy like whipped cream.
Storage
- For best results, Ermine Frosting should be used to fill and frost your cake as soon as it’s made.
- If you do make the frosting ahead of time, refrigerate until ready to use. Bring the frosting back to room temperature then rewhip to aerate.
- Because it’s made with milk, after 3-4 hours at room temperature a cake iced with Ermine frosting should be refrigerated.
- Ermine frosting can be frozen for up to 3 months. Wrap in a double layer of plastic to prevent it from picking up off-flavors in the freezer. After defrosting, rewhip to revive the buttercream.
FAQs about Ermine Frosting:
Yes, add food coloring to the pudding base or to the whipped buttercream.
The frosting will keep up to a week in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer.
If your Ermine frosting is runny either the butter was too soft or the pudding was warm when added to the butter. Chill the frosting briefly and then re-whip.
The pudding was probably too warm when added to the butter. Chill the frosting briefly and then re-whip.
No, Ermine frosting will not form a crust. It will firm up a bit in the refrigerator. For a true crusting buttercream make American Buttercream.
If you’d like to try a slightly richer version of this frosting, here’s a recipe for German Buttercream. German Buttercream has an egg custard base instead of a pudding base.
An if you love chocolate, try this Malted Chocolate Frosting which is a version of Ermine Frosting.
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Ermine Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
- 12 oz granulated sugar (1 ½ cups)
- 2 ½ oz all purpose flour (½ cup)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 12 oz whole milk (1 ½ cups)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 12 oz unsalted butter (room temperature)
Instructions
- Combine 12 oz granulated sugar, 2 ½ oz all purpose flour and ¼ teaspoon salt in a saucepan, whisk to combine. Slowly whisk in 12 oz whole milk until smooth. Heat the mixture over medium low, whisking constantly, until it begins to boil.
- Continue to cook and stir for 2-3 minutes until it thickens to a pudding-like texture. Immediately remove from the heat. Transfer to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon vanilla extract and cool to room temperature.
- Cream 12 oz unsalted butter until light and fluffy. Add the pudding, a little at a time, until completely incorporated. Switch to the whisk attachment and whip the buttercream until it’s light and fluffy.
- Use immediately to fill and frost your favorite cake.
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This is my favorite frosting. I first tasted it on a coconut cake and fell in love! I prefer it to cream cheese on a Red Velvet cake.
I have a recipe for a version which uses 2/3 butter and 1/3 cream cheese but have not tried it yet.
Dear Eileen,
I live in Brazil. My region is so dry and hot. I made your Ermine and the result was won-der-ful. The vanilla taste made the difference. Please, if possible could you inform (in grams) the amount of cooked pudding resulted in this process?
Thank You so much!!!
I’m not sure what you are asking. Are you asking how much the pudding weighs? Just add the weight of the sugar flour and milk and that’s the weight of the pudding.
@Eileen Gray,
Sorry, this information is obviously. I would like to know the weight after cooking the
Pudding….
I haven’t weighed the cooked pudding, but I’m sure it will be very close to the weight of the ingredients. I imagine the weight won’t be exactly the same every time depending how much evaporation happens. Just out of curiosity, why do you need to know the weight?
I’m just wondering can you add alcohol for flavouring? I know Swiss butter cream hold up to a fair amount of alcohol cam ermine as well? If so how much do you think I could get away with?
Well, I haven’t tried it. But I think it could take a couple tablespoons. I would add a tablespoon at a time until you get a flavor you like and keep an eye on the texture.
Hi! I recently made ermine frosting using a different recipe and it worked great but started to crust and became slightly grainy as I used it to frost a cake. Does this recipe tend to crust and thicken up like this or change in texture soon after making it? Do you know if I might be doing something wrong that’s causing this? Thanks so much
I have not had this recipe crust. Did the recipe you used have powdered sugar or corn starch in it? Those would cause crusting.
@Eileen Gray, Thanks so much! I’ll give it a go for sure then. No the recipe didn’t have cornstarch or powdered sugar, but it was cold when I made it. Anyways, I’m excited to give this a second try!
I have to make a 3 tiered cake and it will be frosted with your Italian Meringue Buttercream. Each tier is a different flavor which I plan to fill with different flavored fillings. My question is will Ermine frosting one flavored Mocha, one Strawbberry (freeze dried) and one will be Caramel hold up as a filling. It will be in an air conditioned room as I live in Florida. The cake is a 10”, 8” and 6” each being three layers so I will need to frost and decorate I would think 2 days before delivery?? Will Ermine filling break down? I really didn’t want to continue to use IMBC for the filling. Thank you for any advice!!!
Pam
Yes, I think it should hold up. I would pipe a dam of IMB around each layer before filling in with the Ermine. Ermine is softer and having that dam of IMB should keep it in the cake.