RuthWells

A Mexican wedding cake cookie from RLB's Christmas cookie book. The holiday baking mood is upon me............

I was window-shopping and found some cool transfer sheet designs. I've never ordered from these folks, but they came to me well-recommended. Pfeil & Holing Just thought I'd share!

Maybe thyme?

I make perfect IMBC out of frozen egg whites all the time, so I don't think the freezing is the issue -- are you buying pasturized egg whites in bulk? Maybe pasturization is the culprit?

Scraps of chocolate meringue left over from making Pierre Hermes' Concorde cake, which will be tonight's Rosh Hosh dessert....

I'm sure it's the nuts making the difference, as the butter gets melted with the chocolate.

Quite welcome! Yours seem to have spread quite a bit more than mine did -- did you adjust the chocolate and/or butter at all? Edited because my brain is still asleep -- I'm guessing the omission of the nuts accounts for the difference. With the nuts, you get cookie "clumps" -- no real spreading to speak of.

I prefer the flavor of French, but when I'm doing lots of piping, the Italian holds up much better. 'Specially in hot weather.

I've done that once or twice -- switched from the whip to the paddle -- but I get just as good results using the paddle for the egg whites, so I'm now a paddle girl from start to finish.

Let me know how you like the cookies, Ling. And, my goodness -- you do set a high standard of dessert consumption for the rest of us. You're an inspiration!

Hi, Not sure who you were asking, but I always use the paddle to avoid excess air bubbles.

Looooooooove this stuff. I try to always have some in the freezer. It does amazing things when mixed with bittersweet ganache, also.....

Hiya, Schnitzel! First time I've seen you over here. Your tag line gave you away.

This is the primary reason I don't add the butter when it's too cool or cold -- I don't want to beat the buttercream any longer than I have to to get it to emulsify. I don't want the extra air bubbles when I'm trying to smooth the icing on the cake. Do you ever have air bubbles as an issue, or have I convinced myself of a problem that doesn't exist?

No sweat -- let's see if I can do it from memory: 1) 8 oz bittersweet choc + 2 Tbs unsalted butter, melt & stir over bain marie until smooth, set aside to cool (leave bain marie set up) 2) 1/4 cup A/P flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/8 tsp salt -- sift and/or whisk togther in separate bowl 3) 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract in bowl over bain marie -- mix together until warmed 4) mix warm egg mixture with warm (NOT hot) chocolate mixture 5) add flour mixture and mix until smooth (mixture will be very gooey) 6) fold in 2 cups lightly chopped pecans or walnuts and 6 oz chocolate chunks or chips 7) scoop by tablespoonfulls (I use my little ice cream scooper) and bake on parchment-lined sheets for 12-14 min on 350* until exterior is dry and set, but insides are still gooey Notes: Alice, in her wonderful way, gives adjustments if you want to use higher % chocolates. The adjustments are, generally speaking, if you increase the % chocolate, reduce the amount of chocolate, increase the butter, and increase the sugar. Example -- if using 70% chocolate, only use 5.5 oz of choc, increase butter to 3 Tbs, and increase sugar to 3/4 cup. Well, I grabbed the Lindt 70% without thinking last night, and melted all 8 oz before I realized what I was doing. The tip-off was that the melted chocolate was drier than I expected. So I added 2 Tbs of butter to compensate, and increased the sugar, but only to 2/3 cup. The cookies are sinfully good and the flavor of the chocolate really shines. Conclusion -- as long as you increase the butter enough to offset the added cocoa solids and adjust the sugar to your own taste, this recipe is pretty forgiving.

Will do, Fred. I'm going away this weekend so likely won't be able to put this together until next week......

A Bittersweet Deception cookie from Alice Medrich's "Bittersweet". Gawd, they're rich -- one was plenty!

In class, we were taught to pour the hot syrup directly from the pan into the whites in a steady stream (the stream being about the thickness of a pencil) . If you're using a probe thermometer, let it get to 244 and by the time you get it to your meringue, it will be closer to 248 without having to resort to the greased pyrex (which means another thing to wash/prep). The butter is cool, but not ice cold - if the butter is too warm, it won't emulsify as well and you can get soup rather than buttercream. And about whether it has to be beaten first - my instructor said that it was a step we could skip if we wanted or needed to; it would simply mean a less airy final product. ← I agree on all fronts, JeanneCake. I am simply more comfortable pouring from a Pyrex than I am pouring from a hot saucepan. More control, etc. As for beating the butter before adding it, I used to do this, too, until I realized that it was unneccesary. I simply smoosh (or not) the butter as needed as it goes into the bowl.

No I haven't tried that one. Was the recipe posted somewhere? ←

But not butter straight from the fridge, right? I mean, it would eventually warm up and incorporate in the mixer, but I imagine it would take quite a while.

Remind me, Patrick -- have you tested the Whimsical Bakehouse chocolate butter cake as part of the quest?

Okey doke -- I'll try to get to a demo in the next week or so. Meanwhile, if you're seeing the butter liquify, then temp is your problem, for sure. I'd say, depending on my kitchen temp, I let the meringue cool while beating for anywhere from 5 to 15 mintues. I don't grudge the downtime (as it were) because while the mixer is doing the work, I can clean my workspace or prep the next thing I'm going to be working on. Ice packs could certainly help cool things down, but might be cumbersome (I've never tried it). (My most common intervention is the opposite -- using a hot, well towel to warm up the bowl after I add butter that was too cold to begin with.) I cook my sugar syrup to 248* and pour it immediately into a greased Pyrex measuring cup to stop the cooking and for ease of pouring into the meringue. As for the actual temp of the butter, I've recently stopped focusing on temp and am instead using texture as a benchmark. I want the butter soft and pliable, but not at all mushy. I err on the side of cooler butter, and I tend to smush the butter between my fingers (inside the wrapper) as I add it if it's not quite pliable.

I use IMB fresh off the mixer all the time. I agree that 2 minutes is not enough to cool down the merigue & syrup mixture -- I let the Kitchen Aide go (on medium) for however long it takes for the outside of the bowl to feel just barely warm. If you add butter to a still-hot meringue, you run the risk of melting the butter into liquid. Another key for this buttercream is to add the butter gradually (about 1-2 Tbs at a time) and, once adding the butter, to run the mixer at no higher than medium speed to minimize air bubbles in the finished icing. I make IBM all the time -- I'll try to take pix next time and post it as a demo if folks think it would be helpful.

Hi Am, The meringue will always "liquify" at the first addition of butter. There are 2 possible problems with your buttercream -- one is your formula, one is temperature. If your bowl was "barely warm" when you started adding the butter, you should be okay with temperature -- as long as your butter was at cool room temp (not too mushy, not too cold). Remember, you're making an emulsion, and you want your 2 masses (meringue and butter) to be about equal in temp to assist in the emulsification. (I always pound my cool/room temp butter a bit to soften it before adding it to the meringue, but again, it doesn't *sound* like temperature was your problem.) What is your egg whites-to-butter ratio?

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles, Gary. I would recommend checking out local wholesale clubs in your area -- I get my (off-brand but quite serviceable) butter there for something like $1.80 per pound. If you can buy in bulk, you can save money on most things.