italian

I’m a little obsessed with this recipe. It’s not something you’re going to make when the chips are down and you need something to take to a potluck (although everyone nowadays just stops by the grocery store and buys something, alas). I like it because it’s so fluffy and smooth and because it tastes much more of butter than of sugar. I will probably never make a wedding cake, but if I did I’d use this recipe. Part of its charm for me is simply being able to conquer it. Once you’ve made it a few times and honed your technique, it really isn’t all that hard. There are many varieties of this recipe, the main ones (if I’m understanding the terminology correctly) being Swiss and Italian. I don’t like the idea of the Swiss version (if that’s what it is), because the egg whites don’t really get cooked, and I don’t think you could make it with egg white powder, which is what I use. So I believe this is Italian buttercream. (There’s also French buttercream, which is made with egg yolks. The yolks aren’t really cooked, and I think powdered egg yolks would be pretty bad. I did see Martha Stewart make a wedding cake and use French buttercream for the frosting on the old “Baking with Julia” TV show, but I’d never try it. It was absolutely beautiful, though. And I just went online to check on whether or not I’ve covered all the buttercream bases and found out that there’s also flour buttercream and German buttercream, which I’m not going to go into. However, I was pleased to see that for the most part Italian buttercream is preferred as it’s the most stable and you do cook the egg whites.)

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