Cake Bot French Buttercream #2

By carvalhohm

This is my personal favorite buttercream to use as filling. It's all butter, and therefore delicious. It's also pretty stable, especially for cakes that need good structure, like a 3D or sculpted cake. It is good to work with this buttercream at cool or room temperature. This is another syrup-based buttercream.
Storage: This type needs to be used or refrigerated within a few hours.

Ingredients

• 12 fl oz egg whites (about 10 large eggs or 1 1/2 cups)
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3 pounds unsalted butter, cool to room temperature
• 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract (or extract flavor of your choice),
• (OR up to 3 fl oz light rum, framboise, or kirsch)

Preparation

Step 1

1) Lightly whisk egg whites and sugar together over simmering water until all the sugar is dissolved, or until candy
thermometer reads 140 degrees. You can give solution a pinch to see if you feel granules of sugar still undissolved.

2) Pour hot mixture into a room temperature bowl and whip with whisk attachment on medium high speed until it doubles in volume. (When you shut off mixer, meringue should not move around) Meanwhile cut up butter into cubed pieces.

3) On your mixer, change out whisk attachment for paddle if you want a smooth consistency. You can leave whisk attachment on if you're just using it for filling. Add 1/2 the butter and pulsate mixer to get butter to bottom. (You do this by starting and stopping mixer rapidly several times.) Add rest of butter a few
cubes at a time and pulsate several more times. Starting on low, increase the mixer's speed every 10 seconds until you reach medium high.

4) Continue beating mixture until it begins to look light and fluffy. Stop mixer and scrape bowl. Turn mixer back on to low, and add flavoring(s). Continue on low for 45 seconds, then increase speed to medium high for 45-60 seconds.