God Bless the Swiss

Not only do they give unto the world excellent chocolate, cheese, and watches, they give us a bang-up meringue. My favorite buttercream is the classic House Buttercream gleaned from that precious tome The Whimsical Bakehouse. But if I need a super silky, prettily soft buttercream, I am going with this new one.

The reason this is not my favorite buttercream is because it tastes too much like sweet butter. No really, imagine a stick of butter, but much sweeter. Et voila! Meringue buttercreams! Suffice to say that when this buttercream is refrigerated it turn back into its natural stick of butter texture, and desperately needs to be brought to room temperature before consumption. I like the grit and sickly sweetness of the House Buttercream; it is nostalgic and precious to me. I have heard tell that some people find that to be a less than stellar quality, and though it boggles the mind, the meringue buttercream should be their buttercream of choice.

The two kinds of meringue buttercreams, that I have found, are Italian and Swiss. I have made the Italian a few times and I have to say that my main protest with it is dealing with a fussy sugar syrup. I am not a confectioner. I do not own a candy thermometer (though I do lust for a nice one). I am not one with the gazillions of candy stages. Soft ball stage, my ass. So when I am confronted with a recipe that demands I pull out equipment I do not have and deal with fussy melted sugar, I run. After scalding myself attempting to pour molten sugar from a blazing saucier into a stand mixer, which is running, I decided Italian was not my way.

Since I was not terribly fond of the results, read: sweetened stick of butter, it was a while before I attempted another recipe. This time, Swiss. The Swiss need none of that candy stages crap, though you will need a thermometer, only a double boiler, or a heatproof bowl over simmering water as I do, and a nice, safe, non-scalding mixer. No burning syrup. No evil sugar crystals. Just sweet, beautiful meringue.

I have yet to work with the meringue on its own, though I did discover it is tasty. I am toying with the idea of attempting to pipe it. If Martha can do it, than so can I! (after a few tries) I am also wondering if I can ice a cake with it, and then torch the outside to brown it. I have no torch, alas, and it may not work, but I think it sounds promising and unique.

I halved the recipe for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and it still made a hell of a lot. I am not sure if a full batch would even fit in my stand mixer, so I would keep that in mind.