Can you mix American buttercream & Swiss meringue buttercream?

[Divya]

Sorry if this is a silly question but Can I mix American buttercream & Swiss meringue buttercream? Both are vanilla flavored. I want stable yet not too sweet icing as I need to ice the cupcakes and drive from DC to NYC. Please help

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Sorry if this is a silly question but Can I mix American buttercream & Swiss meringue buttercream? Both are vanilla flavored. I want stable yet not too sweet icing as I need to ice the cupcakes and drive from DC to NYC. Please help

I’d recommend you use a hybrid recipe rather than mix two different recipes. Link below.


American “buttercream” isn’t real buttercream. It’s shortening and powdered sugar.


Swiss meringue buttercream is egg whites, butter, and granulated sugar.


Egg whites are 74% water; butter is about 17% water, depending on the butter fat percentage.


The powdered sugar is not pure sugar; it’s sugar blended with cornstarch. Sugar in of itself is hygroscopic, meaning is pulls water from its environment. Cornstarch is even more hygroscopic. Both the sugar and cornstarch will the suck up the water from both the egg and the butter. Where sugar will dissolve in moisture, cornstarch turns thick, clumpy, and gummy.

While you can add some cornstarch to a real buttercream the ratios have to be correct to ensure the cornstarch in the powdered sugar doesn’t clump up.

For a more stable hybrid of real and fake buttercream, I would recommend you use Gretchen’s Bakery buttercream. Note she calls it “Swiss Buttercream”and not Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

It’s not a real buttercream with the inclusion of shortening and powdered sugar. These distinctions are important since a lot of people will not consume shortening and they do not want it fed to their children.

Gretchen’s recipe was posted sometime ago. The brand of high ratio shortening that she recommends is a professional product that is not readily available to the public. Which is just as well since Stratas Foods just reformulated Sweetex to eliminate partially hydrogenated oils (PHO). While Sweetex has been the best high ratio shortening for baking applications, there are problems with the new formula breaking down when used in icings.

I rarely use shortening. I only use it when a cake is going to be outdoors in temperatures 80° or above. And even then I use it very sparingly. While I’ve only used Sweetex once since the reformulation, I found the icing was far less stable than it would have been with the old formula.

https://www.gretchensbakery.com/swiss-buttercream-recipe/

 

[Divya]

I’d recommend you use a hybrid recipe rather than mix two different recipes. Link below.


American “buttercream” isn’t real buttercream. It’s shortening and powdered sugar.


Swiss meringue buttercream is egg whites, butter, and granulated sugar.


Egg whites are 74% water; butter is about 17% water, depending on the butter fat percentage.


The powdered sugar is not pure sugar; it’s sugar blended with cornstarch. Sugar in of itself is hygroscopic, meaning is pulls water from its environment. Cornstarch is even more hygroscopic. Both the sugar and cornstarch will the suck up the water from both the egg and the butter. Where sugar will dissolve in moisture, cornstarch turns thick, clumpy, and gummy.

While you can add some cornstarch to a real buttercream the ratios have to be correct to ensure the cornstarch in the powdered sugar doesn’t clump up.

For a more stable hybrid of real and fake buttercream, I would recommend you use Gretchen’s Bakery buttercream. Note she calls it “Swiss Buttercream”and not Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

It’s not a real buttercream with the inclusion of shortening and powdered sugar. These distinctions are important since a lot of people will not consume shortening and they do not want it fed to their children.

Gretchen’s recipe was posted sometime ago. The brand of high ratio shortening that she recommends is a professional product that is not readily available to the public. Which is just as well since Stratas Foods just reformulated Sweetex to eliminate partially hydrogenated oils (PHO). While Sweetex has been the best high ratio shortening for baking applications, there are problems with the new formula breaking down when used in icings.

I rarely use shortening. I only use it when a cake is going to be outdoors in temperatures 80° or above. And even then I use it very sparingly. While I’ve only used Sweetex once since the reformulation, I found the icing was far less stable than it would have been with the old formula.

https://www.gretchensbakery.com/swiss-buttercream-recipe/

Thanks a lot for the information! I will look into her recipe.