Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Norcalbaker59, post: 43904, member: 2340"] I don’t think the temperature of the egg whites prevented them from whipping. I’ve whipped egg whites while they were above 85°F then added my butter when my meringue was in the 85°F range. Stella Parks heats her egg whites to a whopping 185°F, then adds the butter when the merignue is 90°F. Although she adds the butter at a very cool 65°F. I just have never had much luck with colder butter. I always end up with butter bits in my meringue, so I go for warmer butter. When egg whites don’t whip, it is usually an oil residue problem or yolk in the egg whites. Italian meringue is a bit sweeter than Swiss meringue. But the boiled sugar is what stabilizes the Italian meringue and kills the bacteria. So you have to use enough boiled sugar syrup to get the job done. But because the sugar is dissolved in water and boiled, it is diluted some, so it is not as sweet as it would be if you added the sugar in raw like is done with a Swiss. I don’t find the Italian meringue too sweet, but it is definitely sweeter than my Swiss. I used to make Italian more than the Swiss because I like the stability of Italian. But of late, I have gone back to the Swiss because I like the less sweeter buttercream. I can tell the meringue is under whipped because the buttercream is very tight with very low volume. When the meringue is beaten to the correct consistency, the emulsion will be high volume and very billowy texture. You buttercream still emulsified, but the butter is very heavy because there wasn’t enough meringue to disburse all the butter. Remember, an emulsion is the suspension of tiny droplets of one liquid into another insoluble or miscible. Both butter and the meringue are emulsions: egg whites and butter each have hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules. When you beat them together, you have to create a new emulsion by binding those hydrophilic molecules. If you have a low volume meringue, the butter isn’t going to have many hydrophilic molecules to bind with. So you have a tight, low volume buttercream. That buttercream probably won’t hold well either. Don’t be surprised if it starts leaking water in a day or two. [/QUOTE]

Verification