It's been a while since I made buttercream icing (French, Swiss, Italian) and had lost my confidence that it would work out. But I followed their cartoon instructions (yes...out of the entire cookbook, the MAIN recipe is drawn out like a cartoon) and it worked.
French buttercream uses 1 whole egg and 5 yolks (as opposed to Swiss, which uses all egg whites). Boil a simple syrup to soft ball stage and add it to the beaten yolks. They recommend testing when the bowl is cool enough by putting your inside wrist against the bowl...just like checking a baby bottle's temperature. It really wasn't that long...probably less than 10 minutes and then 1/8 tsp of Xanthan gum is added...their secret stability ingredient. Next comes ONE AND A HALF POUNDS of butter. Yep. Added it very gradually...I think that took longer than the cool down period. I thought it was screwed because it was looking soupy...but suddenly I went to add another sliver of butter and it had thicken...right when I wasn't looking. I still had another 1/3 of the butter to add and you can see the results above.
It has a texture of silk, but I think it's a bit too sweet so will be adding 72% chocolate tomorrow. I'm planning on making Chocolate Stout cupcakes for a class on Wednesday and wanted to make this icing today to see if I was actually going to make Chocolate Stout cupcakes for a class on Wednesday.
I guess I will be.
Last edited: