Chocolate Meringue Buttercream

Last week, I made an incidental experiment when I ran out of butter while making Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC). It shouldn't have happened. I thought all along that I have plenty of butter when all I had was just one and my meringue was waiting. Uh, oh, I did not panic, it wasn't a paid order anyway, I was just trying to perfect IMBC. With just one butter at hand, I though a cup of chocolate would be a good substitute and holah, perfect, perfect, perfect. My chocolate meringue buttercream tasted like mousse, so light, so yummy, still so fattening.

By the way, I used my Boiled Icing recipe for the meringue. You can use the standard Italian Meringue recipe if you wish.


Ingredients:

4 eggwhites
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups water
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 cup butter
150 grams unsweetened baking chocolate
100 grams semi-sweet baking chocolate

Procedure:

1. Cut the chocolates into small chunks. On a microwave safe or heatproof bowl, melt chocolate at 50% power for 45 seconds or over a double boiler until chocolate is melted. Let cool.

I use part unsweetened to cut down the sweetness of the icing.

2. While allowing the chocolate to cool, prepare the meringue. See the procedure for making here.

After pouring the syrup to the beaten eggwhites, continue beating on medium high until the mixer bowl is warm to the touch. It takes long especially if you live in the Philippines and on a very hot weather (pati ako malapit na matunaw), about 10 minutes or even longer.

3. Take out your butter from the fridge and cut it into an inch cube and drop one at at time to the meringue while running the beater on high. Two things could happen here.

One, it will become soupy, like my case, because my bowl was still a bit hot (not warm)when I added the butter, or if butter is not cold enough. Don't panic, just refrigerate your bowl for a few minutes (20-30) and re-whip.

Two, it will curdle. Still don't panic, you're on the right track.

Continue beating until the icing will become smooth. Slowly add the melted and cooled chocolate to the mixture and beat until combined.

Here you have a to-die-for frosting perfect for the vanilla cupcake I will be posting later.