Italian Meringue Buttercream

I decided to try a new buttercream to make for my cakes this week. After some research I found out that this is a really light and buttery buttercream which involves adding a sugar syrup to egg whites and butter. This is delicious and certainly something I'll make again for my cupcakes. 

Ingredients:

6 egg whites

120ml Water

430g Caster Sugar

680g Butter

Cream of tartar

Place the caster sugar and water together in a saucepan and heat gently. Bring to the boil and then leave it on a rolling boil to reach the soft ball stage. If you have a sugar thermometer this is around 120oC or it took around 10minutes for it to get to that stage. 

Sugar Syrup

Whisk up the egg whites, adding the cream of tartar, until the eggs are at the soft peak stage.

Egg whites

 Slowly pour in the sugar syrup, whilst the mixer is still on, to combine slowly. 

Combined and cooling

Change the whisk attachment to a paddle attachment and mix, on high, until the mixture has cooled. This takes around 10 minutes. 

Cubed Butter

The butter should be softened and at room temperature. Add this, in small pieces, to the cooled mixture whisking constantly. Once all the butter is added scrap down all the sides and give it a final mix up. 

Plain Buttercream

This recipe makes a lot of butter cream, enough to decorate 48 cupcakes or 2 8" sponge cakes. I flavoured half at a time.

Raspberry Buttercream

To flavour the butter cream add:

vanilla - vanilla extract 1tsp

Lemon - Lemon curd 2 tbsp

Raspberry - Raspberry curd to taste 2 tbsp

Chocolate - 200g milk chocolate melted.