Swiss Merengue Buttercream...Success!

Now onto the buttercream. I wanted this to have it's own special post because it was such a big deal for me to get it right! I made it last week for the mint cupcakes but it didn't come out quite right and I'm still not sure what I did wrong but this time it was all right.

This time I made sure to mix the sugar and egg whites in a bowl THEN put it on the boiler so that I didn't have poached egg merengue buttercream like last time.



Then I put it into the Kitchen Aid and set it on medium and set it to whipping--whisk style!! I let it go until the steam was not coming out of the bowl anymore (is that not a super cool thing or what btw!?)...and it was very thick and puffy. SO pretty.



Then I chopped up the butter as I put it in and whipped it like mad for what had to be about 10-12 minutes. I kept thinking really it goes this long?? And yes at first it looks a little thin, I don't think that it looked 'curdled' so much as thin and whipped creamy soft ... and you do stare at it thinking ... did I totally mess this up?? But THEN it just suddenly comes together and like poof it looks right and then it just keeps getting more and more *right* until it looks like this.



I could have eaten it straight out of the bowl! It came out divine. NOW I get it...seriously last week I thought, this tastes so odd, this surely can't be the thing that everyone raves about. Funnily enough people who ate the mint cuppies actually raved to me about the 'frosting' and one gal said she licked it off then ate the cupcake cuz it was so good.

Too bad I can't replicate the 'partial' success but now that I figured the success part out, I'm all over it. This was so wonderful in the layer cake with the lemon and blueberry. I had such rave reviews.

So thanks to How to Eat a Cupcake for the fab idea and raves that made me want to try it and eventually GET IT. I'll post a recipe for the SMBC later...but for now you can check out howtoeatacupcake.blogspot.com (link on the left in my links) and use her pull-down to find any type of SMBC your little butter loving heart may desire. I seriously need to get to bed!!