Kay, I am thrilled that it turned out well for you! YUM!! White chocolate sould be illegal!

Evoir, since this is not a 'crusting' icing, it doesn't take well to the plain Melvira Method. However, if you ice the cake and use a bench scraper or long spatula, you can get a really nice smooth surface. Bench scraper and a turntable is your best (easiest) bet. Simply ice thickly, then use the bench scraper held against the side of the cake and gently spin the turntable removing the 'extra' icing. Keep turning until it's all even and smooth. This stuff smooths very nicely. If you're not using a bench scraper, (Or an extra wide putty knife for example. Plastic or metal.) people have good results with a long spatula. Most people like to dip it in hot water then wipe dry to heat the spatula, then smooth your icing with the hot spatula. But make sure to dry it off, you don't want a wet spatula.

Thanks for that Melvire

I absolutely LOVE using my roller on my BC cakes. I have nothing but high praise for you, sweetie

Just a quick questions about the sticks of butter, is your sticks equal to 1/2 cup?

Yes Spectra! One stick is one half cup.

Evoir, thank you! How nice of you to say!!

Melvira...I have been meaning to pm you a thank you for a while now, but keep forgetting. So, please accept my thanks...and anyone who hasn't tried it SHOULD try it if they are having issues with their regular crusting BC. I use 100% butter almost always, and it works perfectly with that

That's my 'third child', and yes, she is a wee goddess.
She is also very smart! She is trained to use a (human) toilet, amongst other interesting skills! If she wasn't so darn furry, I'd hire her as an assistant in the business

Well she is just beautiful. My cat is pretty, but he's only trained to eat, sleep, and whine to go outside!

ceshell -

Welcome home!

I have no problem smoothing mbc frostings, but I had seen a post on a forum, a long time ago, where someone collared their cake in freezer paper, shiny side to the cake, and chilled it, then used the fondant smoother on it.

Theresa

Thanks ceshell

I remember that thread (think I posted on it about page and I do use a hardware scraper to get my BC almost perfect, and then do the Melvira thang. I read back through Antonia's posts in that thread, and basically she uses her scraper on room-temp copious IMBC, and then 'removes' it (rather than adding and patching etc). Is that all? Could it be that easy?!

I couldn't sleep last night so I was brousing through the forums, when I bumped into this one. I read through the whole thing, so I wouldn't miss any bit of information, and was dieing to try your recipe. I love the taste of butter, and the thought of finding an icing that wasn't so sweet sounded sweet! Soooo... I tried it, and I like it, but, it did kind of feel like a mouth full of butter. I was just wondering if it would work to just lessen the amount of butter. Has anyone out there ever tried SMBC with less butter than it called for?

Yes! Several people have said that cutting back a bit on butter gave perfectly great results! It was too buttery for me at first too, but I warmed up to it. I don't make it very often though because ABC is still the standard favorite around here, and if it's in the fridge, I cannot be trusted! Heheh.

Thanks, I think I will definitely play around with it a while. It's nice to have options other than the super sweet stuff.

I'm sorry if this was answered in on an earlier page, I tried to read through all of them...Melvira, what was the video you saw on YouTube? I did a search and found a bunch. Thanks in advance!

Melvira,

Thanks so much! I'm definitely going to check it out. It always helps me to have a visual to look at in addition to the recipe.

Thanks again for all of your knowledge and time!

Absolutely my pleasure! And I'm so glad we have so many amazing decorators here who can share their pix of how they do it, because it really DOES help to see it! I agree!!

is there anyway to get a white MBC?

I have made the smbc for some years now. But i did not use the carton egg whites. For some reason i was afraid to. Thank you Melvira for giving me the confidence in using the liquid whites from the carton. I made some chocolate last nite and it tasted just like i have always made it using the real egg whites(the kind you crack open) lol!! I even made brown sugar smbc also. I have read to make it whiter, to use european butter and beat it a long time(liter and fluffy). I still make my american b/c also for the ones that love that. everyone doesn,t like smbc or imbc, thats ok.

Melvire and all those who post, THANK YOU. I still would be lving in a small cake box.
I do have a few questions. For the PBMBC, do you use all brown sugar or half brown half reg?
Is there a recipe that I am not finding for french buttercream?

THANKS

Just wanted to post this here in case someone else runs into this situation. I was asked to make sugar-free SMBC this weekend, and I was really thinking it wouldn't work. I did some research, and most of the info said, nope, the chemistry just isn't right with sucralose or Splenda, etc. But the lady I did it for is diabetic, and there was no way I was going to say no without even trying! I did her wedding cake a couple of years ago, and it was a great sugar-free learning experience, let me tell ya!

So, to sum it all up, YES, you CAN make SMBC with sucralose...totally sugar-free, and it tastes DELISH!!!

I made sure my egg-whites were room temp, my butter was verrrry room temp, and I poured my sucralose into the egg whites well in advance of cooking them. I mean, like 2 hours before. I whisked the sucralose/egg whites well, and letting them sit meant that the sugar sub was totally dissolved in the egg-whites. This seemed to have been a problem in many of the posts/articles I read saying it wouldn't work.

So, I finally put them on the double-boiler, whisking constantly, and they came up to 140 REALLY fast. I was almost scared I'd over-done it lol . Also, when I put the bowl into it's water-bath, they cooled REALLY fast. Usually takes longer. Anyway, so I start whipping, and it seems to take longer to get them to soft peaks. But once they got there and I started to add the butter, I got really worried.

It looked curdled almost immediately, and stayed that way until I had EVERY bit of butter in. I was totally thinking it was a bust, but when I put that last pat of butter in and kept whipping, it came together beautifully! Flavored well, piped great, and I have a very happy diabetic friend!!!

Hope this helps someone else!

Hooray!!! I finally made it, and I love it, though I had mixed reviews.

I made Brown Sugar SMBC to go on my brown sugar vanilla cupcakes and the combination was AMAZING!
My fiance (I can never remember if the guy has one or two e's?) HATED it and didn't even swallow it, he wiped it off of his tongue. My stepdad felt the same way. My daughter, mother, sister, and I all thought it was the most over the top delicious frosting we'd ever had.

I mixed about 1 cup of the brown sugar smbc in with a full batch of my normal buttercream, and that won over the doubters. It still had the rich brown sugar taste, but the texture was more of what they were used to.

Thank you SO MUCH for this thread- I don't know when/if I would have tried if I hadn't had it spelled out so clearly and with so many positive reviews.

Well, thanks so much, Melvira lol ! I posted this because I *know* others are being asked to make sugar-free treats.

I did think of something else to add...I had to flavor it more aggressively than I have in the past to get a good, deep flavor. I made mocha, and I had to add about half again the vanilla/coffee solution that I do with regular SMBC. It was still quite buttery, but it had enough mocha to offset the buttery-ness.

Also, I should add that I was making this with my hand-held, not my stand mixer, so I'm sure that affected the length of time it took to get to soft-peaks, and for the icing to come together with all the butter.

I think letting the egg whites/sucralose sit for a while makes sure the sugar sub is dissolved, because it doesn't dissolve like regular sugar. Very important.

I'll be making this again, I'm sure.

Really wish I would've found this thread before making my SMBC. I used it to frost 2 ez cuppies. They are vanilla/chocolate marble with ganache filling. I added 1/3 Tsp vanilla and 1/2 Tsp almond to the SMBC but still it had a buttery taste. Of course I still frosted the cuppies and now I'm in full panick mode thinking they will be hated bc so many here have commented about the overly buttery flavor. Crap crap crap. Well what's done is done and I guess we shall see what the client thinks tomorrow!

I wouldn't be too worried... it really does taste less buttery when it's on the cake/cupcake than when you take a spoonful and eat it straight. I have come to absolutely adore it! I made a batch of butter rum the other day, and I had to put it out in the cooler in my detached garage to keep my pudgy fingers out of it! Argh!! The weather has been bad enough that I won't sneak out there to eat icing! Hahahaha!!