Hi all,

I did a cake this past weekend for a new client. Anyhow, I had the worst time trying to make my IMBC recipe, I redid it 4 times and each time, when I added the butter, it turned to soup. It didn't matter how long I kept mixing it for, it would not come back to the right consistency. After 3, almost 4 hours of that, I finally gave up and just did a shortening buttercream.
I followed my recipe exactly to the letter, I've made that recipe a hundred times before and it has always turned out beautifully! My question is, what went wrong? I have racked my brain trying to figure out what I did wrong, but I did everything I would normally do. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what might have happened?

Perhaps it was too hot and the butter was too soft? I've had that happen once, where I didn't wait long enough for the egg whites to cool down and when I put the butter in it was just soup. I just put it in the fridge to firm up and then re-beat it.

Possible cause of "soupy" IMBC: either you added the butter while the meringue was still too hot, to avoid this, make sure you can comfortably place your hand on the bottom and sides of the bowl before adding the butter, or the butter was too soft (or maybe both).

If it ever happens again, remove some of the BC from the bowl, and place it in the freezer. After it gets firm, add it back to the soupy BC while mixing. If you need to do it more than once, do so. I promise it will work!

When this happens just chill the mixture for 15mins or so and try beating it again. (It may need to be returned to the fridge a second time if it's still too warm)

Thanks so much for the tips, I was afraid to do this again as it gets ki d of expensive when having to throw away that many batches of icing!!! I will certainly give that a try next time.