Thank you ceshell. The 8 oz per batch, what size batch are you making? The 10 egg whites or 20 egg whites? Thanks.



June
xxx

Oops, you got me on that one. I actually thought it was 8oz for a 5-egg white batch. In retrospect, I'm not certain that wouldn't make the icing too soft...since I don't remember what recipe that advice was attached to.

So! According to Melysa's swiss meringe buttercream recipe in the recipes section, she uses 4 oz cream cheese to a batch, and a batch is 1 1/4c egg whites. Now I just have to go figure out how many eggs that is LOL.

You can add quite a bit of cream cheese to it.. it actually firms up the icing IMHO. It makes it pipe beautifully too. If you don't add enough cream cheese it won't really taste like cream cheese frosting. I add about 8 oz to a small batch (5 eggs). Go by taste and just don't over mix it.

I haven't been getting notified of this post.. grrrrr.

ceshell.. I like the caramel SMBC both ways. It's easy to make it just subbing packed brown sugar for the white sugar. I think you get a more intense caramel flavor though if you make caramel sauce (or buy it, but I much prefer making it) and add it in. You can make it with brown sugar and add a little extra caramel sauce and have a great flavor too.

Thanks Jeanne

I'm absolutely an smbc convert, I love this stuff!

My only hiccup with it is the colour - I've just made a batch for a Christmas party cake and isn't as white as I'd like. Could anyone please tell me if there is a way of whitening it? TIA

It's not a bright white icing. There's no real way around that. You can use immitation vanilla, but I personally can't stand the way that stuff tastes. You can also replace some of the butter with high ratio shortening.. that will help a bit too.

Hello Does the SMBC hold up well when you are damming a cake?
I'm a bit worried about the bulging.

Hello Does the SMBC hold up well when you are damming a cake?
I'm a bit worried about the bulging.

Hello does the SMBC hold up well when you are damming a cake?
I'm a bit worried about the bulging.

Mine has always held up fine for damming. Just be sure to allow the usual rest period (unchilled for a short time) for the cake to settle. I like to pipe the dam on with a coupler.

Thank you

I read that you can freeze SMBC, but once it's thawed do you then rewhip?

Yes. Let it come to room temp and then whip it up in the mixer. Make sure that it's not cold or it will separate and look scary, but it will come back together if you keep whipping it and it will go quicker if you warm it up a bit.

Jkalman,

I tried you recipe (20 egg white) using the box egg whites (21.5 oz) and it turned out great! Filled my 5-Qt KA mixer to the top. I like it because it's the right amount for my mixer.

I have added cream cheese and white chocolate to it and I realize it give the BC a firm form and makes piping very good.

Thanks for sharing your ideas and recipe.

Jeannie

PS: BTW, do you leave out your cake when you cover it with fondant?

Can anything be done to your SMBC when too much vanilla has been added to offset the "bite" that it has?

I made SMBC and added too much Vanilla. To top it off, I tried the color-less Vanilla, so it really has a nasty flavor. I really hate to dump out the whole batch.



Anyone please?

Yuk, GI, I am not sure about that only because I don't know the chemical makeup of imitation vanilla, so I don't know if anything will offset it. If it were me, I would try adding a little bit of melted bittersweet chocolate (like, 70%) to a small portion of your icing, you know, like a 1/2 cup or something (just so that if it doesn't work out you don't waste all of that CHOCOLATE too). The chocolate might be strong enough to offset that taste. Try peppermint too. If that works I am sure it would taste divine on a chocolate cake, just right for the holidays.

Again I have zero experience with clear vanilla, I'm just brainstorming about what I would do if the same thing happened to me.

Hey thanks ceshell. Gosh, it was just nasty. I swear I'm going to dump out that disgusting fake Vanilla. I tried a bit of melted high-quality bittersweet in a little cup. Nope, didn't work. Then I tried a bit of melted semi-sweet in a different little cup. Nope!

So I'm desparate for unsweetened butter. Dug thru my deep freezer....sigh....FINALLY found some! Just enough to at least try another very small batch! So I made a new small batch with NO flavor and used unsweetened butter and 1/2 c. of HR sweetex. Then I added just a TAD of the old batch (like a glob off a spoon) in a little cup with the new batch! It didn't taste too bad! So I globbed a dinnerware size service size of the old in the NEW batch and let 'er rip to incorporate. Taste a bit...hmmm...not too bad...so tried about 1/2 that amount of the spoon into the new batch.

It's pretty good now. I was trying to up the volume of my batch of icing. I still have to come up with more to do the borders and decorate. I still have a lot of the old batch left. So I can at least use that to mix into a new batch to decorate with.

Honestly, I don't know what came over my brain to use the clear Vanilla. It was a brand new bottle. I smelled it, didn't smell too bad. But wow does it ever taste gross.

Did you mean unsalted butter instead of unsweetened?

You could try adding some lemon and almond flavors that might rescue it.

I've never used hi ratio shortening at home. But I tried a bit of regular shortening in some swiss meringue bc and it was horrible.
The lovely silky texture turned to greasy blech.

I'm more surprised that the hi-ratio didn't kill it more than the imitation vanilla. The hi-ratio didn't obliterate the smooth butteryness? No icky mouth feel?

I added a bit of salt once and killed it too. It's such an open palette--easy to blow the flavor huh.

I've used shortening in place of 1/3 of the butter in the recipe for my SMBC and it worked fine.

I would try adding lemon extract to it too. But i add lemon extract in everything LOL

I was trying to kill some of the bite to it. I just way overkilled on the vanilla. And the more I think about it, it was the nasty chemical. Blech.

Honestly the 1/3 HR Short seemed to help it a bit. I used all unsalted butter this time. The 1st recipe was 1/2-n-1/2 (1/2 salted/1/2 unsal.). (heh, I only use the store-brand shortening now to grease the cake pan! And even then I line the pan with parchment so the cake never touches it!!)

I thought about a bit of lemon, but I think the flavor was too far gone. Wow, what a disaster this was. Mixing about 1/2 c. total of the "old" batch into a new, unflavored batch seemed to help. At least I won't have to dump the whole thing!

O...M...G! SMBC is the best thing I have tasted in a long time. Thanks so much for the recipe! I may never go back to regular BC again. I am making a baby shower cake this weekend and I am going to make hazelnut SMBC in a chocolate cake.

GI, I had the same problem w/ mine, using clear Wilton vanilla. It had a really wonky aftertaste to it.

JKal...can it be colored w/ gel paste w/out affecting taste/consistency?

doreenre - I will never ever use that stuff again. I will never have pure white icing, either , but at least it will taste great!

I tried coloring a bit with the water-based paste. I put some in a little baggie, added a toothpick color, and then "smooshed" the bag around. It blended better than mixing in a bowl. If I had to color a large amount, say to cover the cake, then I would use Americolor candy colors (oil based) as a large amount would blend better in the mixing bowl.
But for the little flowers, doo-dads, touches, that sort of deco, then the water-based paste worked o.k.when I smooshed it in a little baggie.

HTH!

yeah the oil-based colors work best I heard. I use gel colors cause it's the only ones I have.

It makes it taste like lemon which is a plus for me since I'm kinda addicted to lemons but they're so expensive here. So i make do with extract. not the same thing though

Add your shortening in same time as your butter.

With that in mind, and with previous posters regarding "icky mouth feel" and "greyness" to the color, I did a side-by-side taste comparison. I liked full butter flavor better. I also did a side-by-side with using all unsalted butter and liked that even more. And if you don't color the icing, then you can tell it has a greyness color to it. The buttery-look was more appealing.

However, after letting the mouth have a rest from tasting icing, I did a taste test with the icing on the cake and couldn't tell there was shortening in it. So I s'pose one could go either way.

thanks. im just trying to figure out how to make the buttercream more stable in warmer weather and i had heard adding shortening helps some

Grey smbc might be from metal leeching off something, the bowl or the paddle or the pan you cooked the eggs in. Should not be grey. Made with butter it comes out pale yellow, the longer you beat it the whiter it can get but still it is off white at best but never grey. So if made with part shortening it should be whiter still.

This icing is more high maintenance but it gets hot here in Memphis so I think of it as my needing to keep my cake climate controlled rather than changing the icing.

I deliver my cakes already fully chilled and in boxes with those frozen ice pack things secured inside the box--climate control in the hottest weather. And protected from any random leaf blowing around, rain falling etc. Boxes are our friend.

Yeah,the hot weather really is hard on the SMBC. I have heard leaving the cake in an a.c.-room works well enough and the MBC doesn't have an issue. Before transporting, put the cake in the fridge to harden up the MBC and by the time the cake is there and ready to eat, the icing softens.