Making Swiss meringue is quick and easy. You can either use it to make a durable meringue shell, or you can opt to make buttercream. I decided to make buttercream, so that I could make use of my chiffon cake that we made a few days ago when we made French meringue. I had cooled the cake and then wrapped it in plastic wrap and froze it…then thawed it out at room temp today. To make Swiss meringue, we are going to use another recipe from Bo Friberg’s book, and again, his recipe was very large so I cut it back for you. It is…
1/2 cup egg whites (about 4 whites)
5.6 oz sugar (if you are going to make meringues only use 5 oz)
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
Add the egg whites to a clean bowl with a pinch of salt, then add in all the sugar and mix well with a whisk. It should look like this…
Then set yourself up a pot of water on top of which you will put your bowl with the whites and the sugar. The bowl should not be touching the water at all, it should just be heated by the steam from the water. If the bowl is in direct contact with the water, the heat will cook the whites! My set up looked like this…
Use your whisk and beat the whites until a temp of 140°F is reached. It is important to cook them until that temp is reached because the whites will be consumed after they have cooled, and you don’t want to have any threat of salmonella in the buttercream. They will start looking very fluffy, like this…
At this point, take them off the heat and put them on the mixer with the whisk attachment and let the mixer whip the whites until completely cool. When cool, they will look like this…
If you want to make meringue shells, take the cooled whites and put them in to a pastry bag with a decorative tip, and pipe onto a sheet pan lined with parchment. Bake on a low oven for a few hours, and then shut the oven off and leave them there to cool completely overnight. If you are making buttercream like I did, at this point add the 2 sticks of butter until the buttercream comes together in a very stiff consistency that will be easy for you to spread. It should look like this…
You can flavor it with whatever extract you like before frosting your cake. If you would like to make chocolate buttercream, melt some unsweetened chocolate and whip into the buttercream. I added just a little vanilla, and frosted the chiffon cake that I had filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream…A real Springtime treat.
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