Silky Swiss Meringue Buttercream Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen we're making some silky smooth, perfectly sweet Swiss meringue buttercream. So let's get started! First off, fill a medium pot with an inch or two of water, and we're going to put that on to medium heat so it comes to a simmer. Now, it's time to separate five egg whites out. If you happen to have egg whites you've been saving in the freezer, defrost them, and it's a great time to use them. Otherwise, you want to carefully separate the yolk out because Swiss meringue buttercream is based on a meringue. We're going to fluff egg whites up until they're marshmallowy and amazing, holding so much air. But, if you have some of the fatty yolk mixed in, it's just not going to fluff up as much, and it won't be great. Empty the egg whites into a medium bowl as you go. This, by the way, is my all-time favorite frosting. I love it for decorating cakes and cupcakes because it holds its shape beautifully. It is smoother than smooth, and the flavor is unmatched. You can make this into vanilla, chocolate, any kind of fruit variety. The list goes on, and it's da-licious. And five. By the way, if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every single week. If you're using some saved or defrosted egg whites, the volume measurement for five egg whites is about two-thirds of a cup. Now it's time to add one and a half cups, or 300 grams, of granulated sugar. For everyone who's thought, mmm, I love cake, I love cupcakes, but American buttercream is too sweet for me, this is your buttercream. It is perfectly sweet and really lends itself to all kinds of flavors. You will be able to taste the cake. You will not just be tasting an overpowering frosting. Our scale is done. I'm gonna grab a whisk, add a pinch of salt here as well. Gives you some contrast. And we're gonna mix this up. Swiss and Italian meringue buttercreams are very similar for the final product, but the method is quite different. Italian buttercream has molten, hot sugar syrup being poured into the egg whites as the mixer runs. This has the mixture heating up gently over simmering water. It's much easier and safer, in my opinion, than Italian, although I love Italian buttercream too. Okay, one final thing before this goes on to heat. I want you to take your clean fingers, grab a little bit, and feel it. It should feel really sandy, like you can feel all that granulated sugar. We're gonna take this to 160 degrees Fahrenheit over our simmering water, and one of the things you can do is the finger test. With your clean fingers, you're gonna grab it and check the consistency. Pop this onto your simmering water. The bowl should never touch the water, it's the steam that's gently heating it. You're gonna stir this occasionally. It doesn't need to be a whisk constantly situation until things start heating up. So once that egg mixture warms up a bit, then we're gonna be stirring constantly, but right now, it should just be every once in a while. Let's check it out. This frosting is so versatile. You can make 24 cupcakes with this, or a two-layer 8-inch cake. If you have a bigger mixer, you can double the recipe really easily, or just make multiple batches. And today I'm gonna show you some different ways to flavor the buttercream later on, as well as how to store it, and how to save things, because there are a couple things that can happen here where you're gonna think the recipe's ruined. And if you panic, or if you stop, things will go left. It just won't get fixed, but there's really easy fixes for all the different problems that people encounter. One added note, today we're using two cups of unsalted butter. Room temperature, please. But there is a substitution. If it's autumn, or you want a more, like, nutty, flavorful buttercream, brown your butter. So the night before, just pop your butter into a pot. We're gonna cook it over low, stirring constantly until it becomes a light golden color. Once that happens, immediately pour that into a bowl, let it cool down so it comes to room temperature, and then you can use it in this recipe. Browned butter is a substitution you can do for almost any recipe that uses regular butter, and it's gonna give you a nuttier depth of flavor, and it's so delicious. That is perfect for, like, pumpkin cakes, any kind of autumnal flavor. Delicious. This has been heating up for a few minutes, and already you can see it's thinning out, so it's a little bit thinner, and I can see the sugar starting to dissolve, but if I did the finger test, I would still feel grains, and if I use my instant-read thermometer, this is just at 100 degrees. We want to come to 160 for food safety. We want to cook the eggs so that pathogens or bacteria would be killed. That's why we're gonna temp this out. Mind you, I eat raw eggs all the time. Like, if you ever have a French meringue, the eggs aren't cooked. And by the way, if you don't have an instant-read thermometer, one, ask for one for a present. They're amazing and very useful. But two, you don't have to use it for this recipe. You will use your clean finger test, and it should feel hot to the touch, and you'll feel that all the sugar is dissolved. Right now, all the sugar is dissolved, but it feels only lukewarm, so I know I have a ways to go. And at this point, you should be thinking about your butter. This butter? Too hard! It might be room temperature, but I have the A.C. going, and it is just not gonna be soft enough, so you would want to microwave this. Half power and 5 to 10 second bursts, turning the butter each time, making sure it's in the wrapper, until it's nice and soft. You do not want to have butter that's melting, but if the butter is too cold, it just won't mix in properly either. Final thing, when you're temping this out, do not touch the bowl. It should be floating in the mixture, because if your sensor is touching the bowl, chances are it'll read a hotter reading than the mixture is. As we mix and mix, and this heats up, you'll see that this is developing more structure. Like when you rub it with your fingers, you'll see these big trails left. Once this goes into the mixer, with our whisk attachment, it is gonna form the most amazing meringue. And this is a buttercream video, yes. Please make Swiss meringue buttercream, but you could also make Swiss meringue. You have a lemon pie, or a pumpkin pie, top it with a mountain of Swiss meringue, toast it with your torch, or pop it into the broiler, just to give it a little goldenness. It's gonna be so good. You don't have to worry about raw eggs, it'll have more structure than a French meringue, and it's gonna be just dramatic and delicious. You can do it for certain cupcakes, all kinds of desserts, could just have a meringue topping, and it's often really nice, especially if there's a filling, or a curd, or they're fudgy. Ooh, like a lemon roll cake, topped with toasted meringue. Amazing. Okay, let's temp this out. It just hit 160, so we are ready to pop this into our mixer. Take it off heat, and grab a mitt, or a kitchen towel, so you don't burn yourself. One thing I wanna point out, if someone else is helping you with dishes in the kitchen, and maybe they don't do the best job, now is the time to double check for this recipe, because this should be super clean, no traces of butter, fat, or oil inside. If you have any doubts, you could add a little bit of lemon juice, or white vinegar, and just wipe the bowl down to make sure it is squeaky clean. And, by the way, feels hot to the touch. Very, very, like, sticky, but super smooth. It's like marshmallow fluff, almost. Add your hot meringue mixture into the bowl. Let's get it all out. And the problem is, this is so hot, it's 160 degrees. So, we're gonna run the mixer to build up structure, but once it's the right structure, the mixer's gonna keep running so it cools down. Add your clean whisk attachment on. Start this on low, and we're gonna move it up to, like, medium-high. You can feel the heat coming off. All right, we're gonna do this until you have marshmallow-y, thick, luscious spires of meringue. I'll show you what that looks like, but just let it run for a few minutes before you check, because this will take a while. So, my mixer's been running for a few minutes, and I wanna show you how amazing this is. Boom. That is a sharp, strong, marshmallow-y spire. This is the correct texture, but if I temp it out, it's 98 degrees, so that is too hot. This needs to be in the mid-70s, so the butter doesn't liquefy as soon as it touches the meringue. So gorgeous, though. If you're just making a meringue, this is great to use. Right now, though, you have two choices. You can either let your mixer run for 10 or so minutes, and eventually the mixture will just cool down, or... you can grab some frozen peas and pack the side of your bowl with them. This will help expedite the cooling so that you can get on with your day and make delicious things, and eat them. Whisk back on. We're gonna continue mixing this on medium speed for about maybe 10 minutes or so. Temp it every once in a while. You could also just use your knuckle to test it out. It shouldn't feel warm at all. It should feel room temperature. While this is mixing, it's your final chance to make sure your butter is the right temperature. If it was wonderful and ready to go earlier, but your countertops are too cold, the butter might have hardened, so into the microwave it goes. All right, so I just temped this out, and it's in the low 80s. That's totally fine. It's time to add your butter in, but best practice is to switch to a paddle. But if you just don't feel like doing a dish, you could use a whisk. I've done it by accident, like just forgetting to switch, and it works out pretty fine. The idea is that you don't wanna pump too much air in right now. You wanna like slowly add the butter and get the structure without creating giant air bubbles. So thick. Pop your paddle attachment on. Mixing on low, we're gonna add our butter in one tablespoon at a time. So pop it in, let it mix for a few seconds, and then add the next tablespoon. And you'll repeat this with four sticks or two cups of butter. That's 452 grams. The moment you start adding your butter is a moment of panic, because beforehand, you had this beautiful, marshmallowy, thick, silky, amazing meringue. You think by adding butter, you're gonna add more structure, but what happens is the butter basically melts and this turns into soup. And you think, oh my goodness, this went wrong, like something was too hot, or I just, you know, it's a moment of panic oftentimes. Don't panic. Just understand this should liquefy. It should turn into a delicious soup. When you add in that very last piece of butter at the end of your two cups and mix it for a few seconds, it should just become a beautiful structure. It should be totally perfect. If that doesn't happen and it's still soupy, just pop it into the fridge for five minutes and mix it up again. It normally fixes it. Usually it means that your butter or the meringue was too warm, so it just needs to chill out in the fridge for a bit. If it's still soupy after five minutes, give it a mix and then pop it back in for another five. And I will point out that at this point, you don't have any flavor added. So if you took a little taste test, you're just gonna taste butter and eggs. And you can see I didn't bother cutting the butter up ahead of time. This is using a palette knife or a small knife and cutting off a tablespoon, popping it in, and repeating the process. Your frozen peas can go back in the freezer if you're using them. And if you're looking carefully, you'll probably see kind of a buttery yellow color, but some pure white leftover. That means you should scrape the bowl down. I'm about to add the last stick in. Look at the texture. That looks a little disappointing, right? And this is optimal, like perfect buttercream we're making right now. Nothing is going wrong. So just understand that it's gonna be kind of a soupy mess until the very end. If you're watching this video with curiosity and thinking, hmm, looks delicious, John seems to like it, but this is much more work than American buttercream, all three of these things are correct. If you're short on time, you can always make this frosting in advance. It lasts in the fridge for up to a week. Just keep it in a sealed container or in the freezer for up to a month. If you freeze it, of course it has to thaw. And in both cases, this will need to be popped back into the mixer and whipped up just for 30 seconds or so to restore the texture. Because if this buttercream sits out for even a few minutes before you use it, it turns like foamy and loses the magic. So it just has to get a quick whip on high for 30 seconds or less. And then like magic, it's perfect and ready to go. Last tablespoon. It's time to add a teaspoon of vanilla. I'm gonna show you the texture. So much more structure, but it has kind of a cottage cheesy appearance. Like it's not perfectly mixed. I've been going on low this whole time, so it needs a little bit on high to really whip up. But first I'm gonna scrape the bowl down because I see some pure meringue hanging around. So I used vanilla today, but any flavoring will work. Almond extract, orange blossom water, rose water, maple syrup, like the list goes on. So any flavoring will be delicious in this. And you can add it in to taste. Moving to high, just a few seconds. Hmm, it's too cold. So today I have the opposite condition. It's not even a problem. This tastes delicious. And if you feel it with your finger, your clean finger, it is silky. Tastes so good. But the consistency is a little thick. What happened is, I actually left the ice packs on by accident for a bit and the bowl got cold. Pop this into the microwave. I would do like 10 seconds at half power just to loosen it up and then give it a whip. It's the opposite problem of it being soupy and needing to go into the fridge. If you don't wanna use your microwave, you could also just use your hair dryer and warm things up and then give it a mix. Warmed up. Now it's perfect. So it just needed like 20 seconds in the microwave. Beautiful, beautiful soft spires you can get. I'm gonna show you how to flavor this and how to pipe it now. So you've made some buttercream. Chances are you might either color it or flavor it. I'm gonna show you a couple things. Flavoring it is so easy because this is a very stable, delicious thing. You're only gonna make it better. If you wanna make a chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream, just melt your favorite chocolate, let it cool down so that it is not too hot because the one enemy of this buttercream is heat. You don't wanna melt it again. Add the chocolate in. By the way, this could have been a chocolate peanut butter. You could add Nutella, so many different things. And we're just gonna mix this in. It mixes in really well and you're just looking for the streaks to disappear. Just like that, you have a perfect, beautiful chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream. Honestly, if I was gonna make this entire batch of chocolate, I'd probably melt 3 quarters of a cup of chocolate, add that in, see how I like it, and then add more as needed. This will be a bit more stable than a regular Swiss meringue buttercream because the chocolate will cool down and provide more structure just like the butter does. If you're making a beautiful cake and you wanna decorate this with colored buttercream, I will tell you, you cannot just add food coloring in here. That's not gonna work because there's so much butter in here. If I just added food coloring in here, and this is a nice, very powerful gel food coloring, I could add the entire thing in and it would be a beautiful pastel color. It would never get vivid. What you have to do is grab a small bowl, add in about a tablespoon of the buttercream, and now you're gonna add a drop or so of food coloring. Just like that. I'm gonna microwave this for about 30 seconds, and it's gonna melt and become a soup. But it's gonna become a bright pink soup, which I can then mix into this and get a beautiful, vivid color. Do this for any batches that you wanna color because you will not get a saturated color without doing this step. 20 seconds in the microwave. You can see this is super soupy. So the butter completely melted. We're gonna give this a stir. Now I can add this melted Swiss meringue buttercream into my normal batch, and you'll get the most beautiful color. If you didn't do this, you could keep adding and adding and adding food coloring, and if you look really carefully after mixing it in, you'd see millions of little microbeads of the color suspended in pure white. So it would just never work out. Now you can mix this in, and just like with the chocolate one, it should be really smooth and a beautiful color. I've also flavored Swiss meringue with fruit purees. I've used, like, lemon curd. It really does mix well with things, so you can try experimenting with different flavors. Now I have the most beautiful, like, light pink color, which is perfect for cakes and cupcakes. Once your buttercream is flavored and ready to use, give it a quick whip, just a few seconds to restore the texture. Pop it into a piping bag and use immediately. These vanilla cupcakes are getting a beautiful dollop. Perfect for piping. You get all the definition, and you can see the silky texture come through. Right now I'm just using a couple different piping tips to show you the versatility of this beautiful frosting. With a variety of shapes and sizes in your piping tip, you can get lovely results, and this frosting makes professional-looking decorating so easy to do. I think the only thing left to do is give this a taste, and for an honest reaction, I'm calling in the boys. Lachlan, George, do you want to taste some buttercream? Okay, this is Swiss meringue buttercream. That's chocolate, and the other two are vanilla. Use your spoons and take a bite. Let me know what you think. I knew you would go for chocolate. How does it taste? Lovely. Silky, perfectly smooth, and so delicious. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that like button, and check out my buttercream playlist.