Chocolate Meringue Buttercream
>> Friday, March 19, 2010
Last week, I made an incidental experiment when I ran out of butter while making Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC). It shouldn't have happened. I thought all along that I have plenty of butter when all I had was just one and my meringue was waiting. Uh, oh, I did not panic, it wasn't a paid order anyway, I was just trying to perfect IMBC. With just one butter at hand, I though a cup of chocolate would be a good substitute and holah, perfect, perfect, perfect. My chocolate meringue buttercream tasted like mousse, so light, so yummy, still so fattening.
By the way, I used my Boiled Icing recipe for the meringue. You can use the standard Italian Meringue recipe if you wish.
CHOCOLATE MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM
(Kate's Incidental Version)
Ingredients:
4 eggwhites
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups water
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup butter
150 grams unsweetened baking chocolate
100 grams semi-sweet baking chocolate
Procedure:
1. Cut the chocolates into small chunks. On a microwave safe or heatproof bowl, melt chocolate at 50% power for 45 seconds or over a double boiler until chocolate is melted. Let cool.
I use part unsweetened to cut down the sweetness of the icing.
2. While allowing the chocolate to cool, prepare the meringue. See the procedure for making here.
After pouring the syrup to the beaten eggwhites, continue beating on medium high until the mixer bowl is warm to the touch. It takes long especially if you live in the Philippines and on a very hot weather (pati ako malapit na matunaw), about 10 minutes or even longer.
3. Take out your butter from the fridge and cut it into an inch cube and drop one at at time to the meringue while running the beater on high. Two things could happen here.
One, it will become soupy, like my case, because my bowl was still a bit hot (not warm)when I added the butter, or if butter is not cold enough. Don't panic, just refrigerate your bowl for a few minutes (20-30) and re-whip.
Two, it will curdle. Still don't panic, you're on the right track.
Continue beating until the icing will become smooth. Slowly add the melted and cooled chocolate to the mixture and beat until combined.
Here you have a to-die-for frosting perfect for the vanilla cupcake I will be posting later.
6 comments:
I followed your recipe almost exactly except I used caster sugar with the same amount of water--which was probably not a good idea since it took waaay longer to hit soft ball stage.
The result was super yummy, though! Definitely worth the effort!
Funny thing is, I tried out this recipe because I needed a stable icing for cupcakes that would be sitting in the car while my groupmates and I worked most of the morning along the streets of San Juan for our research paper.
Well, despite its valiant effort, the butter was defeated by the summer sun which probably turned my friend's car into an impromptu sauna. LOL!
It didn't matter though, when we demolished the cupcakes for dessert after lunch, the box was also scraped clean of melted frosting.
Thank you for sharing the recipe!
Hi Kai, hahaha, that wasn't a very good idea to leave the cupcake in the car. Even if the car was parked under a shade, it could get very hot inside. But nice to know you all still enjoyed it, hahaha.
Have you tried this recipe using the usual 1lb of butter? What were the results?
Alright, I just executed this to a T, and it's still a gloopy mess. And I have no idea how your chocolate looks so rich and dark. :-(
Hi Mrs. I haven't tried this recipe again. Did you try chilling your cream then rebeat it again? I apologize if I cannot give you any relevant answer as I have only done this once. Right now I am more comfortable using French buttercream using eggyolks. I will try to post the recipe I am using soon.
Hi Kate!
Is this blog still active?
I hope it is.. I sooo love your recipes..
Post a Comment