AHello, I have a birthday coming up next week and I'm going to make 2 tier cake covered with fondant. I have used the basic buttercream once and I didn't liked the result at all. And I have used ganache and it's amazing but it's too expensive. And now I think I will try the meringue buttercream but I'm really scared of the raw eggs and I can't find here pasteurized eggs. What is your advice for me please. Thank you :)

The eggs in the meringue buttercreams, be it Italian or Swiss, are cooked. But if it still scares you, you can google for recipes using meringue powder and try those instead. 

AThe eggs are cooked so u shouldn't have any issues. I personally only work with italian or french buttercream and have never had an issue.

As the other posters said, the eggs will be cooked so no need to worry about that! I LOVE meringue buttercreams and have tried both Italian and Swiss Meringues. I prefer the Swiss only due to ease of making as boiling sugar stresses me out! The Italian is more stable I've heard, but I haven't had any issues with the Swiss.

That being said, the meringue buttercreams are generally pretty soft so could be tricky under fondant. I would recommend chilling the cake after frosting it, before applying fondant. The meringue buttercreams will be rock hard when chilled, so easy to fondant over. Once at room temperature though, the fondant can sag, depending on how much buttercream is underneath so just be aware of that. 

The best method I've found is frosting the layers with meringue buttercream and then covering the whole thing in ganache before fondant. It is more expensive though as you mentioned.

Here's a couple links from my blog about Swiss Meringue and ganache in case they're helpful:

http://www.livforcake.com/2010/04/swiss-meringue-buttercream.html

http://www.livforcake.com/2010/07/white-chocolate-ganache.html

Good luck! :)

A

Thank you so much :)