Frosting that won’t melt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Making a meringue buttercream frosting is tricky but well worth the effort. It has good stability for warmer weather.

Preppy Kitchen has a recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is delicious enough that you will want to eat the whole bowl of frosting in one sitting, lol.

Be warned - don't use the premium European-style butter when making this frosting. It's too high fat. Use regular butter.

There's a bit of a learning curve for this style of frosting. I suggest a dry run before making it for an important event. But again, careful, or you'll find yourself eating this frosting straight out of the bowl with zero willpower. It's that delicious.

I make wedding cakes and a few things:

I don’t think a meringue based frosting is more stable than an “american” buttercream. I would have hypothesized the opposite.

You can use European butter. It’s not going to make a difference.

The “learning curve” with meringue based frosting is almost all about temperature. Basically if you agitate the frosting at all below 75 degrees F, it’s going to “break” and you’ll have solid butter chunks in sweet egg whites. 80-85 is perfect. But even if it “breaks,” you can just warm it up and beat it and it will come back together.

You’ll notice a lot of variation in recipes with some using meringue powder and some requiring you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, some heating the sugar to softball and some not at all - it doesn’t matter that much. The frosting may be a little more dense one way or the other, but you can incorporate a lot of air once it’s emulsified just by beating it. Using a recipe with heated sugar might make it a little more stable because of the glucose but I don’t think that’s going to make or break you.

There’s just a lot of misinformation out there, like the above about butterfat content. It’s just not true, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Are these cupcakes for the kids? If so, make your life easy and just use some canned frosting. I say this as a person who makes elaborate multi-tiered Swiss buttercream cakes for family events, but if it is just a bunch of feral kids at a park? Duncan Hines cake and frosting all the way. They either 1) won't care or 2) won't like your delightful labor-intensive homemade butter cream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making a meringue buttercream frosting is tricky but well worth the effort. It has good stability for warmer weather.

Preppy Kitchen has a recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is delicious enough that you will want to eat the whole bowl of frosting in one sitting, lol.

Be warned - don't use the premium European-style butter when making this frosting. It's too high fat. Use regular butter.

There's a bit of a learning curve for this style of frosting. I suggest a dry run before making it for an important event. But again, careful, or you'll find yourself eating this frosting straight out of the bowl with zero willpower. It's that delicious.

I make wedding cakes and a few things:

I don’t think a meringue based frosting is more stable than an “american” buttercream. I would have hypothesized the opposite.

You can use European butter. It’s not going to make a difference.

The “learning curve” with meringue based frosting is almost all about temperature. Basically if you agitate the frosting at all below 75 degrees F, it’s going to “break” and you’ll have solid butter chunks in sweet egg whites. 80-85 is perfect. But even if it “breaks,” you can just warm it up and beat it and it will come back together.

You’ll notice a lot of variation in recipes with some using meringue powder and some requiring you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, some heating the sugar to softball and some not at all - it doesn’t matter that much. The frosting may be a little more dense one way or the other, but you can incorporate a lot of air once it’s emulsified just by beating it. Using a recipe with heated sugar might make it a little more stable because of the glucose but I don’t think that’s going to make or break you.

There’s just a lot of misinformation out there, like the above about butterfat content. It’s just not true, sorry.

I posted the above, and glad you cleared up my misunderstanding, lol. I've made it with regular butter and it came out perfect. I've made it with European butter, and it was a mess that didn't come together. I based my comment on my experience, but glad you explained some professional insider tips to make it work with regular or European butter!

Regardless, it's awesomely delicious. I highly recommend it!

I intend to try the cooked flour recipe another PP posted above. It sounds intriguing and delicious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making a meringue buttercream frosting is tricky but well worth the effort. It has good stability for warmer weather.

Preppy Kitchen has a recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is delicious enough that you will want to eat the whole bowl of frosting in one sitting, lol.

Be warned - don't use the premium European-style butter when making this frosting. It's too high fat. Use regular butter.

There's a bit of a learning curve for this style of frosting. I suggest a dry run before making it for an important event. But again, careful, or you'll find yourself eating this frosting straight out of the bowl with zero willpower. It's that delicious.

I make wedding cakes and a few things:

I don’t think a meringue based frosting is more stable than an “american” buttercream. I would have hypothesized the opposite.

You can use European butter. It’s not going to make a difference.

The “learning curve” with meringue based frosting is almost all about temperature. Basically if you agitate the frosting at all below 75 degrees F, it’s going to “break” and you’ll have solid butter chunks in sweet egg whites. 80-85 is perfect. But even if it “breaks,” you can just warm it up and beat it and it will come back together.

You’ll notice a lot of variation in recipes with some using meringue powder and some requiring you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, some heating the sugar to softball and some not at all - it doesn’t matter that much. The frosting may be a little more dense one way or the other, but you can incorporate a lot of air once it’s emulsified just by beating it. Using a recipe with heated sugar might make it a little more stable because of the glucose but I don’t think that’s going to make or break you.

There’s just a lot of misinformation out there, like the above about butterfat content. It’s just not true, sorry.

I posted the above, and glad you cleared up my misunderstanding, lol. I've made it with regular butter and it came out perfect. I've made it with European butter, and it was a mess that didn't come together. I based my comment on my experience, but glad you explained some professional insider tips to make it work with regular or European butter!

Regardless, it's awesomely delicious. I highly recommend it!

I intend to try the cooked flour recipe another PP posted above. It sounds intriguing and delicious.

No prob, I have no doubt you experienced that but whatever happened wasn’t about the butterfat content. It was probably temp. It’s really helpful to have a thermometer when you’re making buttercream. If it happens again, you can warm things up by moving a torch over the outside of the mixer bowl or I’ve even microwaved a portion of the frosting and then mixed it back in. It’s more forgiving than you think, as long as you’re in the happy temperature zone. But as soon as you dip below 75 or above upper 80s F, you’re in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making a meringue buttercream frosting is tricky but well worth the effort. It has good stability for warmer weather.

Preppy Kitchen has a recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is delicious enough that you will want to eat the whole bowl of frosting in one sitting, lol.

Be warned - don't use the premium European-style butter when making this frosting. It's too high fat. Use regular butter.

There's a bit of a learning curve for this style of frosting. I suggest a dry run before making it for an important event. But again, careful, or you'll find yourself eating this frosting straight out of the bowl with zero willpower. It's that delicious.

I make wedding cakes and a few things:

I don’t think a meringue based frosting is more stable than an “american” buttercream. I would have hypothesized the opposite.

You can use European butter. It’s not going to make a difference.

The “learning curve” with meringue based frosting is almost all about temperature. Basically if you agitate the frosting at all below 75 degrees F, it’s going to “break” and you’ll have solid butter chunks in sweet egg whites. 80-85 is perfect. But even if it “breaks,” you can just warm it up and beat it and it will come back together.

You’ll notice a lot of variation in recipes with some using meringue powder and some requiring you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, some heating the sugar to softball and some not at all - it doesn’t matter that much. The frosting may be a little more dense one way or the other, but you can incorporate a lot of air once it’s emulsified just by beating it. Using a recipe with heated sugar might make it a little more stable because of the glucose but I don’t think that’s going to make or break you.

There’s just a lot of misinformation out there, like the above about butterfat content. It’s just not true, sorry.

I posted the above, and glad you cleared up my misunderstanding, lol. I've made it with regular butter and it came out perfect. I've made it with European butter, and it was a mess that didn't come together. I based my comment on my experience, but glad you explained some professional insider tips to make it work with regular or European butter!

Regardless, it's awesomely delicious. I highly recommend it!

I intend to try the cooked flour recipe another PP posted above. It sounds intriguing and delicious.

No prob, I have no doubt you experienced that but whatever happened wasn’t about the butterfat content. It was probably temp. It’s really helpful to have a thermometer when you’re making buttercream. If it happens again, you can warm things up by moving a torch over the outside of the mixer bowl or I’ve even microwaved a portion of the frosting and then mixed it back in. It’s more forgiving than you think, as long as you’re in the happy temperature zone. But as soon as you dip below 75 or above upper 80s F, you’re in trouble.

That's a good point and I will try that if it ever falls apart again! This buttercream has become a family favorite for birthday cakes. Thanks again!