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Creamy, stable, and easy to spread, this swiss buttercream frosting is by far my favorite frosting. I’ve tried many buttercreams and ganaches, but this one almost always ends up on at least part of every cake I bake.
I’ve been baking cakes ever since I can remember. Just the other day, when looking through old photos, I even found a picture of a cake that I had proudly baked (ate age 10) when my baby sister was born.
Sure, it is likely that those first few cakes were baked with a mix, and I’m not just referring to the first few made with my Easy Bake Oven. I wanted to try to make cakes and frosting from scratch, but I didn’t really know how.
When I moved to Spain, though, things changed. Even though I hadn’t completely embraced a real food lifestyle yet, I couldn’t just go to the local supermarket and buy a box of cake mix and a tub of frosting. If I wanted to make a cake, I was going to have to do it from scratch. When I first started making cakes from scratch I found a lot of decent cake recipes, but I found it difficult to find a good, easy frosting to make from scratch.
Frosting from a can pretty much grosses me out. To be honest, they always did, but I didn’t know any better. My first attempts at buttercream were less than impressive and I had to keep trying and trying for a frosting recipe that was easy to make, easy to manipulate and that tasted great. I was motivated to try new ideas for making a decent frosting, and I even made one cake that was layered with different ganaches and buttercreams between each of the layers of the cake just so I could try out several recipes.
The most common buttercream recipes floating around pretty much use just a combination of butter and powdered sugar to make a frosting of sorts. The problem is that depending on the temperature, you can either end up with a solid block of frosting, or a runny mess. Without the addition of something like a chocolate bar, those buttercreams don’t hold up very well to heat. The other problem with them is that they are very rich and very sweet. When you compare them to a Swiss buttercream recipe, the standard buttercream has a higher percentage of sugar and butter. That’s why I find them too sweet and too rich. For me, the egg white merengue in the Swiss buttercream balances out the flavor of the frosting and also gives it a super smooth and silky texture.
You can probably guess by now that my preferred frosting is a Swiss buttercream. Swiss buttercream frosting is made with a swiss meringue, which is what helps make it stable. The whipped egg whites are heated with the sugar and then worked into a merengue before adding in the butter. Those added egg whites make for a lighter, tastier frosting; at least I think so. Those with a sweet tooth, of course, probably prefer other types of buttercream.
The swiss buttercream frosting does take a little longer to make than some of the others, but if you have a stand mixer, it is still pretty effortless and simple to make. In fact, I think it is probably one of the easiest frostings to make for beginners. The results really are worth it. I can’t imagine ever going back!
So Let’s Make some Swiss Buttercream Frosting!
Swiss Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 5 egg whites
- 1 1/4 cups sugar (Yes, you can even use coconut sugar.)
- 2 cups butter softened (room temperature)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Mix together the sugar and the egg whites in a double boiler over medium heat, stirring often and checking to see if the sugar has dissolved into the egg whites.
- When the sugar has dissolved (After 5 minutes or so), pour the mixture into a large bowl. If you have a stand mixer, pour the mixture into the bowl of your mixer.
- Beat the mixture with an electric beater until the mixture cools and stiff peaks form. This will take awhile (10-15 minutes), so if you have a stand mixer the process will be much easier and less frustrating.
- Add in the vanilla and butter, little by little. Keep beating, even if the mixture looks like it starts to come apart. It may even look curdled, but keep adding in butter and beating until it all comes back together again.
Notes
Another thing that makes this recipe great is that it is very versatile. If you want to make a chocolate frosting, you can add in some cocoa powder to taste!
As for the sugar, feel free to use whatever type of sugar you prefer, be it an unrefined cane sugar or even coconut sugar.
Happy baking!
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What makes it runny
Hi Kevin,
If the Butter is too liquidy when you add it, I suppose it could get runny. I’ve never had that happen with Swiss buttercream, but you should be able to fix it by chilling the mixture slightly and then re-beating it. (If too chilled, allow the butter to come to room temperature-if not too hot out-first, or it will be difficult to beat.)
Can you use powdered sugar.?
Hi Emma,
Yes, you can use powdered sugar, but there is no need to use it as the other sugar will dissolve into the egg whites. Powdered sugar is usually a lot more expensive and the expense is unnecessary here.
Can you freeze this frosting?
Hi Nuala,
I’ve always read that you can freeze buttercream frosting, but I’ve personally never try it. I usually make it several days ahead and store it in the fridge. Either way, you’ll have to leave it out for awhile to get it to come to room temperature before using it. Then you’ll want to re-whip it to recuperate the right texture for spreading. I hope that helps!
I made this today and it is FANTASTIC! My only change was that I added vanilla bean paste rather than extract. I did use a digital thermometer to make sure the eggs reached 140 degrees for the correct amount of time because I am expecting. This is my new favorite frosting! Thank you!
I’m so happy you enjoyed it.
Congrats on your coming bundle! 🙂
Hi,
I wondered if I you think mixing caramel sauce would be okay with this. I just made a salted caramel icing using a powdered sugar based recipe and it was too sweet and em..oily (?) I think i side with your camp on the topic of icing.
I may test it out this week to see what happens but thought i’d ask in case you might know.
Thanks 🙂
Hi Carrie,
I would think that you’d be able to mix a small amount of caramel icing with the buttercream to give it a caramel flavoring.
This past week I just made a cream cheese icing by mixing some cream cheese with this buttercream frosting. The final frosting was slightly thinner in consistency than the buttercream without the cream cheese, but the flavor was great.
I used it for the carrot cake layer of my son’s birthday cake. It was great because I was able to make the same frosting for all the layers of the cake, but was able to change the flavor of the carrot cake layer by only adding a bit of cream cheese.
I’d start off by trying to add just a little bit at a time, making sure not too add so much as to make it too thin.
I’d love to hear how it goes! 🙂
Hi just wondering how much this recipe makes/ what size of cake it covers??
Thanks☺
Hi Christine,
Great question!
It’s hard for me to answer this perfectly as people frost cakes so differently, you know? 😉
I like to cut my cake in lots of layers and put lots of frosting between each layer and over the top and sides of the cake. Other people are a lot more conservative. haha
In any case, I usually double this recipe when making my son’s birthday cakes and it completely fills up the bowl of my mixer when doubled. (I can try to go check on the volume of that bowl later for you!)
I usually have enough, when doubled, to frost his entire three tiered cake with several layers of cake in each tier. Here’s an example cake. (I can check the sizes of the pans I use when I get home.)
I really only make one cake per year anymore because I’ve been trying to really cut down on sugar around the house, so I’m basing this on working with those special, large cakes for my son’s parties, but I’d guess that with the recipe as is, you should be able to easily frost a pretty good sized cake.
I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, and hope that at least helps somewhat!
I just realized that I had to ditch the top layer of that cake to fit Wall-E and Eve on top, so that year I only made a 2 tier cake,
but I ended up with enough leftover frosting to make the cake pops- and probably had more leftover afterwards. 🙂