Buttercream Centers

The long-time tradition of candy making is a craft we cherish here at GYGI. We get many customers in the store who have grown up dipping alongside their mothers and grandmothers. They come to buy the same chocolate their family has purchased every year. Our goal is to help them get their homemade chocolates, especially their buttercream centers, just like their aunts, or grandpas- or even better, to start their own tradition!

We were thrilled when we found our friend John and his impressive talent with homemade chocolates. He takes the ingredients, the techniques, and his flavors very seriously. When you get a chocolate-covered buttercream center from John, you can taste the care in every single bite.

Buttercream centers dipped in chocolate and dusted with raspberry powder

Join John and Heather in the kitchen to show you how to whip up a batch of these tasty buttercream centers.

Buttercream Centers

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Ingredients

  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • ½ cup milk
  • 2/3 cup white Karo Syrup
  • 4 ½ cup C&H pure cane sugar
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup Marshmallow Crème

Instructions

1

Stir all but marshmallow crème in heavy, 6-8 qt. pot. Bring to boil. Cover with lid for 30 seconds to steam down crystals. Continue stirring and cook to 228º F Salt Lake elevation (or 237° F sea level) on a candy thermometer.

2

Remove from heat and pour, without scraping pan, onto marble slab. Let it cool until a flick of your finger into the candy takes a few seconds to recover.

3

Add marshmallow cream and beat with a flat utensil or putty knife until candy begins to lose it's gloss—about 10 min. Let candy rest for 1-2 min. Resume beating until candy begins to stiffen and loses its gloss. Stir in nuts, if you’re making fudge.

4

Divide and flavor as desired, or add flavoring to entire batch at beginning. Shape into walnut-sized balls (make a rope, cut, shape in Pam-sprayed hands), place on Pam-sprayed parchment, and let sit, covered, overnight or for several hours to form thin crust. Dip.

Notes

To make other flavors: Raspberry: process 1/2 cup of freeze-dried raspberries in a coffee grinder and sift out seeds using a fine strainer. Beat raspberry powder into the center mixture. Orange Cream: 1 ½ teaspoon Boyajian orange oil, and (if desired) zest of one orange, finely chopped. Lemon: 1 ½ teaspoon lemon oil, and zest of lemon, finely chopped. Chocolate Fudge: Add dark chocolate chunks to fondant as you begin to cook it, and nuts just as it begins to set in the beating process.

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The magic of chocolate-covered buttercream centers is all in the type of chocolate you use. John recommends dipping with high-quality couverture chocolate. To learn how to use it correctly, read this post all about tempering couverture chocolate.

Want to learn more about chocolate? Read our Chocolate 101 post.

This buttercream centers post is a part of our 2020 Chocolate Extravaganza. To see a list of all the classes, click here.

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12 Comments

  • Reply
    Holly
    November 13, 2020 at 6:01 am

    Is 238 degrees at sea level or Salt Lake level? I’m trying to figure out what temp I would use at 6500’ elevation

  • Reply
    Chanel
    November 14, 2020 at 2:36 pm

    Can anyone else not see the video? Only hear?

  • Reply
    Amy
    November 8, 2021 at 10:24 am

    This is a year after you asked the question. But others might be wondering the same thing, so here’s a primer on elevation and confectionery. Candy recipes usually give temperatures based off of sea level elevation. If it were a home cook talking about what they do themselves, I would be skeptical of any temperatures given. But 238 is a pretty average temperature for fondant (which is what a creme center is).

    You have to calibrate your thermometer, though. Put it in a pot of steadily boiling water and note the temperature that your thermometer is giving on that particular day. Add or (more often) subtract that temperature from 212, the temperature water boils at at sea level. Whatever that difference is, adjust all temperatures in the recipe accordingly. This principle applies to any sugar work: fondant, caramel, hard candy, fudge, etc. It seems like a picky thing, but your margin of error in confectionery is really narrow. Three degrees can make a big difference in the end product. And unless you have like a NASA-grade super accurate thermometer, you want to know what your specific thermometer says the temperature of boiling water is.

  • Reply
    Richelle Nelson
    November 10, 2021 at 8:33 pm

    I just watched your video and loved it! Thank you so much! I do have a question: If I have a granite countertop, Can I use that instead of a marble slab? I’ve made fondant before and just stirred in the pot (until my arm almost fell off), so I love the idea of a faster process. Thanks again!

    • Reply
      Kaesie
      December 2, 2021 at 4:56 pm

      SO sorry we hadn’t responded sooner but YES! You can use any natural stone countertop. They all stay cold enough to turn the candy.

  • Reply
    Janae Hudman
    November 21, 2021 at 3:55 pm

    Any idea how much dark chocolate you add to make the entire batch chocolate?

  • Reply
    Cherneys creations
    December 5, 2022 at 7:00 am

    Can I add cream cheese to this when I add the flavors? I make a strawberry cheesecake chocolate. Also could I replace the milk with vegan milks such as oat milk or coconut.

    • Reply
      london
      December 13, 2022 at 2:24 pm

      This recipe is really finicky and you have to have correct proportions and conditions for it to set up properly. It would take a lot of time and experimentation to try and make a vegan option. If you give it a try we would love to know how it turns out.

  • Reply
    JWood
    December 18, 2022 at 10:02 am

    What went wrong with the first batch so we don’t do that? I tried to listen and didn’t quite hear either of you say why it failed.

    • Reply
      Whitney
      December 19, 2022 at 1:50 pm

      We used organic white sugar in the first batch and standard C&H sugar in the second batch. But, we still aren’t sure if that’s what caused the first batch to fail.

  • Reply
    Tom AndersonPecus
    January 17, 2024 at 4:16 pm

    Can you add invertase to make it creamier? If so when do you add it? Can you use a mixer ? Where did you purchase your orange flavor?

  • Leave a Reply