Swiss Buttercream Recipe

Swiss Buttercream Recipe

Swiss Buttercream Recipe Using Angel Bake Buttercream Mix

French Macarons are traditionally filled with Swiss buttercream.  The Angel Bake Swiss Buttercream mix is an easy to prepare, versatile meringue base that can be used in many applications in addition to French Macarons.

Ingredients:
  • A box of Angel Bake Swiss Buttercream Mix.
  • 4 OZ hot water. 120 grams.  Half a cup.  160 ‘F
  • 2 sticks of soft room temperature (soft) unsalted butter.
Directions:
  • In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, *hot* water to buttercream mix.  Accurate water measurement is important.  Use a measuring cup or a kitchen scale.
  • Whip on high speed until meringue is stiff and shiny.  Roughly 4-5 minutes.
  • Gradually whip in two sticks of room temp soft unsalted butter (1/4 – 1/2 of a stick at a time).
  • Whip for 2-3 minutes on high speed, until the mixture is silky and smooth.
  • Additional food flavoring/extracts (i.e. vanilla, rose, lavender, chocolate, lemon, orange, almond, peppermint), powdered food coloring, jam, cocoa, espresso(coffee extract), nut flour, curds, or liqueur may be added at this stage.  Whip 30 seconds more to incorporate.
  • This buttercream is perfect filling for French Macarons, decorating cakes and cupcakes.  Its also a perfect match for waffles, pancakes, and toast.
  • Buttercream can be kept for 1 week in the refrigerator and longer if frozen.  Thaw to room temperature before using.  You will need to whip the buttercream to reconstitute it back to desired consistency.
  •  The following post has flavoring ideas.
  • We recommend Angel Bake Extracts for flavoring your buttercream and Angel Bake powdered food coloring for coloring your buttercream.
  •  You an use the Meringue for just about any recipe requiring meringue.  Use it as a pie topping, torch and bake as you’d like.  Try our meringue cookie guide.
  • Most meringue base products contain corn starch, and a number of stabilizers which produce a chalky feel, medicine like after taste.  We’ve steered clear of them, and we are pleased for having done so.
Chocolate Flavored French Macaron Recipe

Chocolate Flavored French Macaron Recipe

Chocolate Flavored French Macaron with Cocoa Swiss Buttercream Recipe

To make chocolate flavored French macarons, simply add a small amount of brown food coloring and chocolate extract (and/or cocoa powder) to the macaron mix, add water, whip as instructed, pipe and bake per instruction on the box.

Ingredients:
Directions:
  • Watch related video here
  • Prepare three baking trays lined with Silicon Mat (we don’t recommend parchment paper).
  • Set oven to 280 ºF for convection bake settings or to 300 ºF for conventional bake.
  • Add cocoa powder and 2 oz warm water (122 ºF) to Macaron mix.  Mix at low speed for 1 minute, then medium speed for 3 minutes.  If using electric hand mixer, whip the mixture in a deep bowl for 3.5 minutes using the slowest settings.
  • Place a round pastry tip in a disposable pastry bag, cut the tip. Place it in a tall plastic jar or a glass, and fold over the edge. Pour batter into the pastry bag.
  • Using guides on your silicon mat, pipe the batter in 1 – 1.25 inch circles. Tap each tray on a hard surface a few times to remove any air bubbles and flatten cookie surface.  Cookies will expand to 1.75 inches when you tap the tray (they will fill the silicon mat guide when flattened).
  •  If oven is set to “bake”,  let cookies rest for at least 15 minutes or until the surface is dry to touch.  Bake for 15 minutes.
  • If using “convection bake” settings, there is no need to dry the batter as the hot air movement created by the convection fan dries the surface very quickly before batter starts to rise.  Bake for 20 minutes.
  • While shells are baking,  whip up the buttercream:
    • Add 2 oz hot water (160 ºF- same temp as when making tea or coffee) to the mix.
    • Whisk at high speed for 3-4 minutes until meringue is stiff.
    • Add brown food coloring, cocoa, and or chocolate flavoring (optional).
    • Gradually whip in 1.25 sticks of soft unsalted butter.  Avoid using cold butter.  Whip until the mixture is silky and smooth.
  • Remove trays from oven.  Let shells cool down completely before removing them from trays.
  • Garnish with buttercream and assemble.  Again, make sure shells are cool.

Flavoring note:  Some bakers prefer coloring the shells and simply flavor the buttercream only.  Feel free to experiment.  Chocolate and lavender or chocolate and mint are great combinations.  For instance chocolate shells with a mint flavored buttercream would make a great combination.

When adding dry content to the macaron mix (such as cocoa in this recipe), it is a good idea to remove the same amount of mix so the to total dry content remains the same.