Wedding Cake

How To’sday: How to Make Swiss Meringue Buttercream

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Swiss Meringue Buttercream

For the first several years of my training as a cake decorator, I used an icing composed primarily of Crisco and powdered sugar. And I’ve gotta admit, for someone decorating 1-2 practice cakes (and in later years, simply styrofoam cake forms) every month, there was nothing better: it’s snow white, doesn’t take long to bring to room temperature, holds it’s shape  and consistency even as it gets warm in the piping bag, and seemingly never spoils.

That icing served me well for a long time. But as I grew older I started to grow wary of the mysterious ingredients in Crisco, and the gritty texture of the powdered sugar irritated me more and more. I started to think perhaps it was time to up my game in the icing department. And it only took a teensy bit of digging around the cake-baking community to know that I needed to learn, above all other things, the art of Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

The very best buttercream
And boy am I glad I did. Each batch I make reaffirms my obsession with this icing: impossibly smooth and creamy, light and airy, shiny and stable, and delicately sweet. It freezes well, so it can be made in large batches even if you only have a small cake to bake. Because the sugar is dissolved, there is no grittiness whatsoever. It’s stable once applied, gives strength to your cakes, and is gorgeous enough to be used as an outer icing with no need for fondant. Plus, it can be adapted to just about any flavor you want.

I’ve now used this buttercream for two wedding cakes, a birthday cake, cookie icing, cupcake icing, and dinner party cakes. It’s extremely versatile and soooo tasty.

So today, I want to share it with you. And it’s not scary! Though it is a bit time-consuming, it’s pretty straight-forward to make. So let’s dive in and make some SMBC!

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part VI: The Big Reveal

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Previously:
Part I: A Prologue
Part II: Um, So, What Are We Doing?
Part III: To Do
Part IV: Testing 1, 2, 3
Part V: The Home Stretch

Welcome to the last of my six-part series about the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of baking a wedding cake. Last Tuesday, I flew to Colorado to attend a hen party, participate in the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, stand up as a bridesmaid, and last but not least, to bake a groom’s cake and a wedding cake for Sierra, my best friend of 15 years, and her fiancé husband, Sean.

It was quite a whirlwind trip.

This was also the first time I’ve made a trip to Colorado since leaving for college eight years ago that coincided with luscious autumn colors glazing the mountains and meadows of home. The scene was nothing short of breathtaking.

But you’re probably not here for my photos of leaf-peeping and coasting down Hesperus Hill. I’ll wager you wanna see some dang cake!

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part V: The Home Stretch

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Friends, it’s wedding cake time!

After several months of, design and re-design, recipe hunting, cake baking, flavor testing, and technique practicing, I’ve arrived in Colorado to do the real thing. Though the next few days will be long, busy, and full of butter, I’m really quite thrilled to be here. I haven’t seen October in Colorado since my senior year of high school, and it sure is something to see. We don’t have the red sugar maples of the east coast, but golden aspens against evergreens and snow-capped peaks are truly breathtaking. I hope I have at least one evening to take a drive through the mountains and enjoy some Colorado autumn.

But the priority this week is cake. Monday night found me bustling around my apartment packing what may be the strangest looking luggage I’ve ever compiled. In addition to my standard jeans, t-shirts, and socks, I’ve packed 10 cake pans, a quart of pecans, a case of decorating tips, piping bags, a bridesmaids dress, three options for shoes to wear with said dress (I may end up using all three, who knows), two antique glass insulators, four cake knives, one cake layer slicer, a box of parchment paper, two tubes of raspberry filling, a Lazy Susan, a cake turner, a jar of ginger, a roll of blue cellophane, a tripod, a pack of paintbrushes, gum paste, almond paste, vanilla bean paste, and a few other odds and ends that I’ll need to make this cake happen.

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part IV: Testing 1, 2, 3

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Previously:
Part I: A Prologue
Part II: Um, So, What Are We Doing?
Part III: To Do

I’ve spent the last two months baking inordinately large quantities of cake to prepare for the wedding cake I begin baking in t-minus ten days. The flavors of fall permeated my apartment long before the weather did as I tested recipes for sugared pecans, maple cream filling, pumpkin cake, almond cake, and more. Thankfully, I work at a university with a veritable army of cake-loving, high-metabolism college students ready to sample these cakes as they positively burst from my kitchen.

I must admit, overall, I’ve been pretty lucky with first attempts. I, and all of my faithful testers, were over the moon for the very first pumpkin cake recipe I tested, along with the experimental maple cream filling that went with it. I’d already made the almond cake, so I really didn’t need much adjustment there, and a vanilla cake that will compose the tiny top layer (for guests with nut allergies!) was easy enough. There were, however some unfortunate discoveries.

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part III: To Do

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Previously: Part I: A Prologue & Part II: Um, So, What Are We Doing?

Those of you who know me well know I live by lists. Lists of lists. They help me stay focused, complete teeny tasks I might would definitely otherwise forget were they not written down. My BFA in stage management was, in large part, composed of and achieved by making calendars, schedules, and lists.

The little wedding cake (ha) I’m making sure feels a lot closer from this side of my trip home than it did from the other. I am not a professional baker and therefore do not have a mass of trusty recipes and finely honed techniques in my pocket ready to be whipped out a few days before the wedding. With that in mind, I’m spending much of my time over the next ten weeks (gulp) testing recipes, practicing decorating techniques, adapting recipes I like to high altitude (just in case I wasn’t nervous enough about how the cakes will turn out), and ensuring that I’ll have everything I need to I fly across the continent to take over my mother’s kitchen for several days of cake madness.

But hey, I have a plan. And for you fellow list-aholics – you know who you are – I couldn’t help but share.

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part II: Um, So, What Are We Doing?

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Previously: To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part I: A Prologue

A couple months ago, I introduced you to Sierra & Sean, some of my closest friends who, in just under six months, will be returning to our hometown to get married. A weekend in the mountains with close friends & family, beautiful Colorado autumn, and stellar meals are on the docket for their October wedding: it’s going to be a blast. And in addition to participating as a bridesmaid, I’m tackling a wedding project that Sea and I have talked about for years: I’m making their wedding cake.

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To Bake a Wedding Cake, Part I: A Prologue

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This is Sierra.

And me. The gawky one on the right.

Sierra has been my best friend since we were eleven. Not just friends that catch up when we return to our home town at the holidays. She’s the kind of friend that still edits my resumes (and I hers). The kind of friend that calls me at seven in the morning just to tell me about how crappy the Phoenix traffic is, still references events from middle school, and who holds the other membership in our two-person book club. The kind of friend who helps me strategize and plan elaborate parties despite the fact that we live 2000 miles apart.

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