It’s been a while since I made icing for cakes. I didn’t like my old buttercream recipe as it was fiddly and a bit too buttery for my taste. I haven’t tried swiss meringue buttercream and thought it would be interesting to see how it turns out.

Three words: WOW. WOW. WOW. Pillowy, soft and cloud-like. Amazing. Thanks to bloggers like @stylesweetca and @toplessbaker my cake deco game is back on! 🍰🍫 The buttercream was a joy to make and pipes so well. So smooth and tastes light. It also sets a bit when cooled in the fridge which is great if you have to transport it. This will be my go-to recipe for icing!

I added Fresh As freeze dried raspberries inside each of the layers, raspbery chocolate paste from Sabato, Miann gold dusted almond and coffee Valrhona dark chocolate, Solomon’s Gold new chocolate kibble (as deco pieces and also melted and added into the chocolate icing), Valrhona cocoa powder. What a cutie!

Dark Chocolate Swiss Meringue Frosting

(Adapted from Style Sweet Ca)

Ingredients

• 3 large egg whites (120ml)
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, softened
• 4 tablespoons mascarpone, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 60g dark chocolate, melted (best you can afford)
• 4 teaspoons of your best baking cocoa powder

Instructions

1. Place the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Whisk by hand to combine. Fill a medium saucepan one-third full with water and bring to a simmer.
2. Place the mixer bowl on top of the saucepan to create a double-boiler. (I have a small metal steamer rack that I use to rest the bowl on as my saucepan is a bit too wide for the bowl). Whisking intermittently, warm the egg mixture until it reaches 60-65 degrees C on a candy thermometer.
3. Once hot, place the mixer bowl back on the stand. Whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form and the outside of the bowl returns to room temperature (about 8 minutes). At this point, it should be very glossy.
4. Turn the mixer speed down to low and add in the softened butter and mascarpone, two tablespoons at a time. Stop the mixer and change the whisk to the paddle attachment.
5. Add in the vanilla, melted chocolate, and cocoa. Mix on medium-high until the buttercream is smooth, fluffy, and cloud-like (about 3 minutes).

Just for fun I switched the tip and pipped some ruffle stars as well!

Key points:

* Make sure your butter is at room temperature when you add it to the meringue. Keep mixing if it looks like it has curdled.

* Make sure your meringue has returned to room temperature before adding the butter or your bowl of cloud will become bowl of soup! Cool the whole bowl and mixture for 20 minutes before whipping again.

*Don’t run off and do something else between step 3 and 4. I made the mistake of waiting too long before adding the butter and it just didn’t come together. Lesson learnt and passed on.