White Cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream

Have I mentioned how much I hate the smell of butterfat? I do. In fact, as a child, I didn't like butter on anything from corn on the cob to toast. Fortunately, I have pushed past that as an adult, which has allowed me to enjoy butter on everything. But if I smell it on my skin or in my sink, I still get a little grossed out. The smell of butterfat was yet another thing that made my first job at Baskin-Robbins hard.

It is one of the downsides of this project. I always smell like butterfat these days. And it permeates my apartment.

I mention this because there is a lot of butter between the cupcakes and the buttercream in this post. Don't get scared, now.

I have discovered that, when I bake cupcakes for children, and I ask them or their parents what kind of cupcakes they want, the response is usually white or yellow. Or funfetti. For this reason, I have to stop baking cupcakes for children.

I have a child client that I am meeting with for the last time this week. Often, I bring treats when I am terminating with my child clients, and we have a mini-celebration. When I asked this client what kind of cupcakes he wanted me to bring, he responded white with white frosting. I think his parents were a little bit disappointed, too.

The good news is, I got to make Swiss meringue buttercream.

As far as cooking goes, egg whites are my Achilles' heel. I never feel like I whip them long enough. I have a hard time getting them folded in right in my cupcake recipes, so some of my cupcakes are more light than others. And the last time I tried to make Swiss meringue buttercream, it was a world class disaster.

However, on this day, things were working. I used the bowl that came with my precious, precious KitchenAid to heat up the egg whites, and I measured the temperature with my candy thermometer. I whipped the whites with the KitchenAid whisk attachment and cut in the butter. In a perfect world, the butter would have been at room temperature because it didn't blend with the whites right away. But, as I continued to mix it with the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid, it became a glorious, glossy buttercream. I have probably had other accomplishments that, by worldly standards, are more impressive, but I have never felt as good about myself as I did when the butter softened and it went from egg whites with butter chunks to Swiss Meringue buttercream.

The advantage to using this recipe is that it does not call for powdered sugar. If you are out of powdered sugar or if you do not like the taste of powdered sugar, this might be the buttercream recipe for you. The downside to this recipe is that it calls for lots of egg whites. Consequently, I have LOTS of leftover egg yolks. If you have any tips on what to do with them, I would welcome that.

Here is the link for the cupcakes. It is slightly modified from the one in the recipe book, as this recipe makes 3 dozen, and the one in my book only makes 2 dozen. Often, though, it is better to make less. In this case, I was going to take the leftovers to work, and then, unexpectedly, ended up taking a detour and having lunch with a friend. Meanwhile, the cupcakes sat in my car on a warm day for a couple of hours, and the buttercream melted, which made them unappetizing to the people I work with, and I ended up throwing them away.

Here is the link to the buttercream. Make it and be prepared to be in awe of yourself.