Today, I am sharing the recipe for what I personally consider THE best buttercream. It is not too sweet, there's no raw egg involved, no artificial aftertaste, and it's also stable enough to withstand Singapore's hot and humid weather, which makes it the perfect buttercream for cake decoration and general frosting uses.
(To prove my point, I left my frosted cupcake out on the countertop at room temperature for over 15 hours and yep, the cream still held it's shape perfectly!)
To be honest, I'm not quite sure what type of buttercream this is considered to be. It's not American, Swiss Meringue, Italian Meringue, French, German or Korean, yep I've done a lot of buttercream research haha xp
This recipe was created by a bit of a happy accident, when I first started baking and had no idea how to use the ingredients I bought to make frosting, including a tin of Swiss Meringue powder (that was what was written on the tin at that time) otherwise known as egg white powder as I later discovered. And this, my friends, is the ultimate secret ingredient to make the perfect buttercream.
My buttercream recipe uses a butter:sugar ratio of approximately 2:1, that is a quarter of the quantity of sugar in a typical American buttercream, and half that of Swiss Meringue buttercream. Plus, it's pretty much fail proof. You really can't go wrong with this recipe, so what's there not to love? On to the recipe!
Ingredients:
500g butter
300g icing sugar
3 tsp meringue powder (egg white powder)
2 tsp vanilla
Method:
Ensure that your butter is not too cold before you begin, otherwise it'll take a really long while whisking it before it gets smooth. It'll get there eventually, just a bit of a waste of effort haha xp You can cube your butter to get it to approximately room temperature in about 15 to 30 minutes from removing it from the fridge though, so don't fret!
Place 500g of butter in a mixing bowl and sift in 250g of icing sugar. Mix at low speed until the butter and sugar are fully incorporated and at medium-high speed for another 10 minutes for the mixture to be well aerated. The mixture should be a pale yellow colour at this stage. *If the mixture is starting to look like it's melting, stick it into the fridge for about 15 minutes and continue mixing.
Sift in 3 tsp meringue powder and mix at low speed until fully incorporated
Add in 2 tsp vanilla and continue mixing. At this stage, taste your buttercream and add in remaining 50g of icing sugar if necessary.
Continue mixing at low-medium speed for another 5 minutes to get rid of large air bubbles and add in food colouring if desired.
And that's it, you're done! This buttercream holds up amazingly well in Singapore's tropical climate and you can leave the frosted cakes or cupcakes out for a full day without worrying about melted frosting. Because the frosting is butter-based, it will solidify when in the fridge and become soft at room temperature. I would love to hear from you if you've tried this recipe, so do drop a note.
Carina xx
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