Swiss Meringue Butter Cream does not crust or dry like American Butter Cream. It is smooth and stable in room temperature. Therefore, it can be used to frost cakes, decorate cakes and cupcakes, or covered by fondant.
Yield:
Cake: 1 x 6"
Cupcake: It depends on design, generally enough to frost 18 -24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
150g Egg White, can use fresh egg whites or carton box of pasteurized egg whites.
200g Granulated Sugar
454g Unsalted Butter, cubed, soften in room temperature.
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (or any other flavoring)
Optional: Food coloring, pinch of salt
Methods:
In a bowl, over a bain marie (a bowl over a pot filled with heated water), whisk egg whites and sugar until sugar dissolved and the mixture has thinned out. If use fresh egg whites, thermometer should read 160F ( please disregard the temperature shown in the video, it 's typo).
Transfer the mixture to mixer, whisk on medium speed until firm peak (about 8-10 minutes).
Slowly add in cubed and soften butter and mix until well incorporated.
Optional: add in flavoring & food coloring.
If you like to soften the sweetness, add a pinch of salt .
Helpful Tips
- Clean your tools with white vinegar or lemon juice. Fat interferes meringue setting up.
- Make sure there is no trace of yolk in your egg whites.
- Soft unsalted butter should be cool to touch. Too warm, the frosting will turn soupy; too cold, it will be sweating and not combined well. I often take butter out of the fridge 2-3 hours before using.
- Before adding butter, check if the bowl and meringue are at room temperature yet. If it still warm, you should wait for it to cool down.
- Beat in chill/cool butter helps creating firm butter cream (also creating shinning texture), good for using with Russian Piping Tips and upright petal piping.
- Also keep your working space at a low/cool temperature to prevent buttercream melting while working with it. If it become soft, put in in a fridge for 3 to 5 minutes, take out and mix it again with spatula.
- If you have warm hand, using double bags is recommended.
- You can make Swiss Meringue Butter Cream ahead of time and freeze it. Store in airtight container, then thaw it at room temperature. Once it is soft, use paddle attachment to beat until creamy again.
- On a humid summer day, it is best to keep your cake/confections in fridge as close to serving as possible. If the weather is too hot for you, so does butter cream.
- To increase melting point, substitute half of the butter with shortening. However, this may change the taste of buttercream.
If you had questions about cupcakes and buttercream, please check out this post:
Good luck and have fun baking !
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