italian meringue buttercream - the fail proof kind

not to be a hater, but f*ck american buttercream

I was never a frosting girl. Which is surprising since it’s no secret that I love cake, and large part of my career thus far has been built on the intricately layered and frosted kind. As a kid I would scrape frosting off cupcakes and eat around the cloyingly sweet stuff while enjoying a slice of birthday cake. The only frosting I would happily devour was whipped cream, but that’s not really a frosting in the sense of something that offers stability and structure, which is something that’s absolutely necessary when successfully building a layer cake. My world was forever changed when I discovered Italian meringue buttercream. Imagine the cloud like fluffiness of whipped cream, with the same, if not better, stability of American buttercream, that’s perfectly balanced and not too sweet. It sounds too good to be true, especially to a frosting hater. Italian meringue buttercream starts with a meringue (egg white + sugar) base that is then combined with butter and whipped to glorious perfection. It’s lovely as is but also serves as the perfect base for a plethora of flavors. This is my no fail buttercream recipe, which makes enough to generously frost an 8” double layer cake. I’ve also included a few of my favorite flavors, but I encourage you to get creative mixing and matching whatever your heart desires.