Italian Butter cream

 

16oz sugar

4oz water

8oz egg Whites

38oz butter

1 tsp. Lemon Juice

1.5 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Procedure:

1.      Put sugar and water into a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. 240 degrees (softball stage)

2.      Add lemon juice to sugar mixture.

3.      Once at 240 degrees, turn off heat and let cool slightly.

4.      In an electric mixer, add cold egg whites and mix with whisk attachment until frothy. Once it is frothy, began to slowly pour sugar mixture into the frothy eggs with the mixer on high speed.

5.      Continue to let mix until eggs are fluffy with firm peaks and completely cooled.

6.      After the mix is cooled to room temperature, turn mixer down to half speed and add the butter a tbs. at a time until butter is completely mixed in.

7.      Add the vanilla and mix well.

This is an amazing recipe for fresh, real Italian Butter Cream. Once you make this for your relatives or friends, it will be the only thing talked about around the holidays. At first, this looks like a complicated recipe for the average individual to make at home. If you follow the procedure step by step, you should not have a problem. 

            I make this recipe quite often because my family and friends request it over the holidays. It is creamy, buttery, and lightly sweet, the way butter cream frosting should taste. When the holidays come around I like to use this recipe for pumpkin rolls, cakes, cookies, and pastry puffs. Honestly, I make this recipe so much that I have the ingredients and procedures memorized. My Italian Butter Cream is now part of my family’s holiday tradition. It is very important to follow the steps exactly. Some need to know tips are in the following:

• ·         Adding the lemon juice to the sugar and water, while it is boiling, will prevent the mixture from form crystals and making candy. You want it to thicken slightly and become a syrup. (This is called a simple syrup)
• ·         You want the simple syrup to cool before drizzling into the mixer to avoid cooking the egg whites. A great technique would be to hold a bag of ice against the mixer to help cool the eggs. This is the base of your icing, and can easily mess up the whole batch if done wrong.
• ·         After egg whites are completely cooled, begin adding the butter. If butter is added to hot egg whites you will be left with butter soup. If this happens just hold the ice bag against the mixing bowl, while on medium speed, until the mixture forms back into thick icing.
• ·         I suggest making the cake before the icing. Let the cake and kitchen temperature cool so the icing does not get limp.
• ·         The icing will harden back into the consistency of butter if put into the fridge. This is not a big deal. Just make sure the icing is thawed out and whipped back into a smooth consistency before you began icing your dessert.