Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Cahoot, post: 44397, member: 3784"] [USER=2340]@Norcalbaker59[/USER] Swiss meringue has been driving me crazy now. It doesn't whip to nearly to the volume that it should. I do all the cleaning steps for the mixer bowl and the whisk: washing with soap, soaking in vinegar-water, rinsing, and drying. The mixture is heated to 165°F on the stovetop, then whipped starting on medium-low speed and gradually going up to high speed. However the final meringue seems to be incredibly low volume (pictures below). For reference this batch was 200 g egg whites, 400 g sugar in a 6 qt KitchenAid bowl. When I make Italian meringue with even fewer egg whites, the meringue is at least 50% more volume than what's in the bowl there. It was whipped for about 10 minutes to 90°F, so at least there wasn't the temperature problem from before. [ATTACH type="full"]3738[/ATTACH][ATTACH type="full"]3739[/ATTACH] The finished buttercream: [ATTACH type="full"]3740[/ATTACH] But differently from last time, the buttercream was much lighter, about 170 g/cup. Admittedly I was also experimenting with beating in the butter at a higher speed and it ended up with many air bubbles, so the density was probably a bit lower than it should've been. When I compare the finished buttercream with my previous picture, it's noticeably less dense and more billowy, but it's hard to say if it's still less fluffy than it should be. As a subjective observation, the buttercream did [I]taste [/I]very light to me, since it was used for a cake with heavier fillings (nuts and praliné). In fact I even thought it was almost like whipped cream, as there was such a big contrast between the lightness of the buttercream and the heaviness of the praliné. So the finished buttercream is definitely an improvement, but I'm still unsure of if (and what) I'm doing anything wrong with the meringue itself. [/QUOTE]

Verification