Our Stable Swiss Meringue Buttercream Recipe is essential for our celebration cakes that need to be transported as can be seen from the wedding cake below that made it from Dorset to Central London in the car boot! We use white chocolate to add both flavour and stability. It has a lovely texture and is not overly sweet.
Flavours can be added at the end, eg masala wine and vanilla (as used for the Raspberry and White Chocolate wedding cake) or lime rind and gin (for gin & tonic cake).
Ingredients
250g Egg Whites (we use two chicks)
325g Castor Sugar
0.5 tsp Cream of Tartar
200g unsalted butter
200g salted butter
230g White Chocolate (melted - I use microwave bursts of 20s each with stirring between)
Method
This method is written for the Kenwood Cooking Chef. With a non heating mixer you will need a bain marie for the heating part.
Heat the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in a very clean bowl, set the
Kenwood with splash guard on at 70 degrees C using rubber scraping beater and minimum speed. Stir constantly until all of the sugar has dissolved and the temperature has reached 70 degrees C. This will take about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and keep stirring. Now the meringue should be whisked in a cool bowl (we ice our hot bowl for a few minutes whilst stirring). Don’t rush the whisking as you want the meringue reaching room temp and stiff peaks to coincide (in an ideal world-who lives in one of those?).
For the cooking chef:
With balloon whisk:
Speed 3 for first 5 minutes whilst still icing bowl (or change bowl)
Speed 5 for a further 5 minutes
Max speed until stiff peaks (not much longer)
Switch from the whisk to the Kenwood K beater or equivalent paddle attachment and using a low-medium speed add the cubed butter one tablespoon at a time ensuring each cube is incorporated well into the meringue before adding the next.
During this stage your mixture may become soupy (too hot) or lumpy (too cold) this will cause stress in a first timer but rest assured that if you just keep mixing it will eventually come good.
Once you have a good textured room temperature buttercream add the melted (and slightly cooled) white chocolate and mix until the buttercream is once again uniform.
Finally add your flavouring if required:
35g Masala Wine
1.5 tsp vanilla essence
Don't be tempted to add the masala wine to the white chocolate whilst melting it - you get a horrible oily chewy mess - I found out the hard way!
For Gin & Tonic Cake
35g good quality gin like Gordon's
Zest of 2 limes (for smooth buttercream needs to be whizzed in a blender with the gin)
Comments