The first time I made Swiss buttercream was for the Fudgy Chocolate Cupcakes that I previously posted. It turned out great!…even though I didn’t do it completely right. But oh well. This past week in my Pastry 102 class we were learning about the different types of meringues and also making them for various items, such as, macarons, dacquoise, and buttercream…Swiss buttercream that is.
We used the buttercream as our filling for the macarons. Then because we had the buttercream, we used it to fill our dacquoise, which ended up being extremely sweet! I don’t recommend filling a dacquoise with buttercream unless you LOVE sugar. It also had marshmallows, M&Ms, and caramel sauce drizzled over all of it. It was every kids dream, but complete sugar overload.
So now how to make Swiss buttercream the right way. This recipe is the recipe I got from my instructor, who got it from Baking and Pastry, Mastering the Art and Craft by the Culinary Institute of America.
Ingredients
1 lb. sugar 
8 oz. egg whites
1 lb. 4 oz. butter, softened and chopped into chunks
2 tsp. vanilla extract (or desired flavoring)
Directions
- Put the egg whites and sugar in the mixing bowl and place over a double boiler. Whisk to prevent scrambling the eggs. Whisk and heat the mixture until it reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Put the bowl on the mixer using the whisk attachment on a high speed until it reaches medium soft peaks.
3. Slowly add small chunks of the butter while it continues to whip on a high speed. Adding the butter slowly is especially important if the butter is cold. Let it mix a litter in between adding chunks of butter. Once about half the butter has been added, bigger chunks can be added. If it looks broken or doesn’t look like buttercream, it’s ok. It just takes some time for it to come together to look like buttercream.
4. Lastly, add the vanilla extract or any flavoring you choose. Mix until combined.
I hope you enjoy this buttercream! It’s one of my favorites!
The Buttercream Letters 