hi I'm Beth Somers from the Wilton Test Kitchen and I'm really excited to
show you today how to make my very favorite icing
swiss meringue buttercream, it's delicious
it's got a rich creamy flavor and it's very smooth and silky and that's why
it's my favorite
now what differentiates meringue butter creams from a traditional Wilton
buttercream is the use of egg whites and what we're going to do is we're
going to cook egg whites to a safe temperature to eat which is a 160
degrees Fahrenheit
and then we can combine that together with our other ingredients to make a
really really silky delicious buttercream
so for this recipe you will need
4 egg whites separated from four whole eggs, 1 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt, three sticks of unsalted butter
softened all the way to room temperature and then cut into chunks
about 1 tablespoon big is good and one to two teaspoons of pure vanilla
extract
depending on the taste that you like. Now what you're also going to need
is a thermometer because as I said we need to cook our eggs to 160 degrees to make
sure their safe to eat
you're going to need to cook in some kind of a double boiler
I'm going to do that today directly in my mixing bowl if you have a bowl like
this in a pot
it will sit and without touching the water underneath
that works perfectly and you won't have to dirty any other dish so I'm going to do
mine right in here
so into your mixing bowl or the top of your double boiler
put your egg whites, the one cup granulated sugar
and the pinch of salt and give it a good whisk
just to get it combined and it's going to look pretty viscous
we're going to put that onto our double boiler
and you're going to need to
let this cook like I said to 160 degrees that's going to take a different amount
of time depending on how cold your egg whites are going
into the mix bowl but do not walk away from this it's a lot like making caramel
it's going to go slowly at first and then it's going to go more quickly once it
starts to get warm
at the beginning you don't need to whisk it constantly but as it does become
warmer
whisk it all the time, constantly so that the eggs just don't scramble
in the bowl you want to keep the mixture moving as it comes up to temperature
so that it cooks nice and evenly and you have no egg chunks
so once your mixture reaches a 160 degrees it's going to look
very white
and kind of foamy and a little bit more loose than it did
beforehand, so what you want to do now is transferred to a mixing bowl or put your
mixing bowl right now on if you used it like I did
and with the whip attachment at high speed
you're going to whip the mixture until it completely cools down to room
temperature
this take some time just let it whip until the outside of the bowl
feels completely cool to the touch
so when your bowl is cool to the touch that's when you know it that it's ready
and that does take a good amount of time don't rush it because if it's not
room temperature once you start to add your butter which is our next step
it's going to melt in the mixture and it's going be really soupy and it won't setup
as an icing
so this is what you're looking for congratulations you've made meringue
this is where the name swiss meringue comes from it's very
it's got a sheen to it it's very opaque and it holds a stiff peak
when you pull the beater out, well a medium peak
thats fine believe me this is very very sticky now going to switch to a paddle attachment
and I find that by banging this is really the easiest way to get it all off of this
of the whip
and it kind of goes all over but that's part of the fun of baking
so we're going to transfer to our
paddle a attachment, so sticky it's kinda like marshmallow
and
we're going to begin adding are butter one
chunk at a time and remember you butter is very soft and that is so that it will
incorporate
very easily into your mixture, so we're going to do this
on low to medium speed one chunk at a time
making sure that each addition is fully incorporated
into the meringue before you add another piece, don't rush it
resist the urge to add more than one piece because if you rush it you are
going end up with some lumps in your buttercream that are really hard to get
out later on
so be patient with this, cooking the eggs takes a little bit of time
whipping the meringue takes a little bit of time, adding the butter takes a
little bit of time but the end result is fabulous
so just continue until you added all your butter
along the way they're going to notice the buttercream doing
two different things, after you add about 4 tablespoons
a butter it's going to start to look soupy it gets a lot looser
that's normal don't worry just continue to add your butter after everything after
one piece is incorporated add your next
continue on, don't freak out
at some point about halfway through adding the butter
you're going to want to stop the mixer and scrape down the bottom in the sides
of your bowl well because some of the meringue
that's left over will stick to the sides and the bottom on the bowl
we just wanna make sure everything is good and incorporated and a really quick scrape
helps us to do that
okay so I'm very close to being done adding my butter and as you will notice
it looks like the buttercream is actually curdled again
fear not this is normal it always happened continue on with your last few
bit the butter
continue beating a little bit longer and it will just magically come together
the last thing to do is to add our flavor
in here I am just using pure vanilla extract
so as you can see it's smooth and luscious and creamy and completely
consistent
all the way around which is exactly what we want, now I flavored mine with
pure vanilla extract which of course is delicious but you can do a lot of other
things
extracts were great or you could do melted chocolate or cocoa powder
but keep in mind this is a softer consistency icing
which means it will not hold a lot of liquid so if you want to flavor with
coffee
or a fruit juice consider making your coffee extra strong
or reducing your fruit juice a little bit maybe on the stovetop
to concentrate the flavor so that you can add less, this recipe will only take
between two and three tablespoons of liquid
before it starts to break on you, so just keep that in mind when you're choosing
your flavor options
now as I mentioned it's a thin to a medium consistency
icing it's perfect for icing a cake but I don't recommend using swiss meringue
to make things like roses
which require a stiffer icing but any way you slice it
swiss meringue is delicious and we hope you give it a try