Sugar Islands Chocolate Buttercream

Name: Sugar Islands Chocolate Buttercream
Yield: makes 3 1/2 cups icing
Ingredients: Michel Cluizel Hacienda Los Anconès or Cacao Barry Origins Saint-Domingue; 6 large egg yolks; 3/4 cup sugar; 2 tablespoons light corn syrup; 1/4 cup water; 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces; 12 ounces dark chocolate, melted; 1 tablespoon vanilla extract; 2 tablespoons dark rum, preferably Meyers’s (optional); Splash of heavy cream; 1 teaspoon kosher salt

December 9, 2011

This recipe offers treasures of the Caribbean “sugar islands”: chocolate, sugar, and rum. It’s a classic French buttercream using a cooked sugar technique, pâté à bombe, to blend and aerate the eggs and sugar, which creates incomparable richness. Or maybe it’s the butter. Or maybe it’s the chocolate. You get the picture—it’s rich! One batch makes enough to ice one 2-layer cake, but if you like generous layers and rosettes, double this recipe. Allow time to chill the buttercream. If soupy, chill it for another half hour. If stiff, heat it over a saucepan of hot water, then whip it. For children, you can omit the rum.

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