So, I am on a quest to cook through all my clipped recipes. So, this is one of the first I picked up, because I had the egg whites on hand. While making the meringue I noticed that it is actually an Italian Buttercream. You can tell by looking at the recipe that that may have been a little hard to tell, though. I don’t know what made me chose this particular one to try out, or why I bothered to write it out, when I have it in multiple books- it must have come with a glowing recommendation from someone. Who? I have no clue. If you know, please let me know!

I was in a rush, so I did not follow it too well. I used 11 egg whites, because that’s what I had on hand. I whisked to 160 on an instant read thermometer

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,because that’s what eggs need to cook to. If I was working with raw egg whites, I am paranoid enough to use either powdered egg whites

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  or bean juice.

This is the sugar and the egg whites in my pan, starting up on medium heat, before whisking. I used a decent 4 qt All Clad pan 

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for this, because it’s perfect for finicky things like this. I did not let the egg whites come to room temperature, which is supposed to raise the volume, but I wasn’t planning far enough ahead for that.

While making the Italian Meringue Buttercream, I was also trying out a … I guess it’s a technique for making granulated caramelized sugar. This was forwarded to me by a friend who knows we like to bake and brew, and it looked really intriguing.

The first thing I did was say too much sugar for a test! So I only used 6 cups. I probably should have used a lot less, but I was ok with that. I also lowered the temp by 25 degrees, because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be as careful with it as the author wanted me to be. The color changes were pretty subtle, as you can see.

I didn’t get any liquid in the edges, but I got little balls of molten sugar rolling around, and I will not mention what they looked like. I removed them and gave them to The Boy, who was ok with eating them.

The color took forever to get from a white to an ivory, then to a very very very pale beige. I don’t think the temperature reduction of 25 degrees was responsible for that. It took over 4 hours, all totaled, and the result, while good, wasn’t worth to me the babysitting required to make sure it didn’t turn into a lump. I could see how if I were a professional baker and I needed something to push my products over the edge, this may be worth it, but even then, the taste is so subtle, I doubt it. Anything that’s going to be transformed again, like through baking or brewing, I may as well make syrup. It’s easier and the taste is stronger.

So I will not be attempting this again. Although, we have 2 quarts of it, so who knows if I will be addicted to it in the future. That said, it’s on Amazon for over $2.50 an ounce, so it’s not worth buying if you really want it.

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