FromScratch. did you say somewhere that you use organic eggs? If you do, is there a taste or quality difference? I have been using regular supermarket eggs because I am planning on FDA approval and my recall protocol includes the same brand products used consistently. I could use organic supermarket eggs, but my preference is to use the organic farmers' market eggs if I make the change. Any difference in baking too?

Thanks for the help. The farmers market bill is pretty high (heavy cream is $4 per pint). I am not in a location where I can get access to fine ingredients and I'm not big enough to go wholesale. My husband does go to Annapolis on weekends, so I have access to dp cocoa powder, fine liqueurs, and Whole Foods. Even our Sam's club has weird brands of flour. So I also have to use the internet and the health food stores. When I get bigger I will find a purveyor in Annapolis. But I think the eggs need to change now.

FromScratchSF - I got the chance to use your recipe here. I usually use the ratio of 1:2:3 when I make SMBC. But yesterday I made some SMBC using this recipe here. I already use the same process you use, so the only difference are the ratios. Because I got two different results I thought I would share it here.

1. Your meringue using your ratios in this recipe is lighter and fluffier than the 1:2:3 meringue (calling it my meringue from now on). I would say that my meringue comes out like 7-minute frosting. Mine is very marshmallow like in look (think marshmallow fluff without being so sticky, but still a little sticky), stiffer, shinier and sweeter. It takes a lot longer to cool down than your meringue did. I liked that about your meringue.

3. Even though your SMBC uses less butter than mine, yours tasted buttier at first. My DD called it sugar butter. It is not a bad thing and this was before I added any other flavoring. Once I added some vanilla bean paste for one batch and some orange extract for another batch, the butter taste was not existent. But my SMBC does not have that distinctive butter taste. No wonder I couldn't understand what others meant by a butter taste. I did a taste test on day 2 and the butter taste is definitely nonexistent. I use the highest quality butter I can find. I think you have said before that you use an Amish brand of organic, which I wish I could get. so that maybe why you don't get that butterier taste when you make it.

4. Interestingly, again though yours use less butter, the resultant SMBC before the flavoring was also more yellow in color than mine. I get a slight ivory tint. Your SMBC was definitely yellow when I was done. I added orange food coloring to the orange flavored SMBC. It is a nice pastel shade of orange. I was conservative in the amount of food coloring I added. I wasn't going for bright orange, just a tint to give the idea of orange flavor.

5. The two SMBCs are about the same consistency almost. My SMBC might be slightly lighter, for lack of a better word, than yours. Which again is weird given the heavier meringue my ratio produces. I hate to use the word stable, because both SMBCs are stable, but yours was a tad "thicker" and richer consistency. Again, strange because it uses less butter in the overall ratio of ingredients. But oh well, they both are good!

6. Yours took a lot longer to go through the science osmosis to become SMBC. It did take the amount of time you stated, if not longer. My meringue converted to SMBC sooner. But that makes no difference in the final outcome. I mention it in case someone is doing research and this comes up.

I will probably use the two different ones interchangeably. There is no difference in flavor between the two now that the flavoring has been added. But I think yours may hold up to flower piping a little bit better than mine. I have yet to try to make a flower out of SMBC, like a rose. I think I will have to try now that I said that. I just get the feeling that yours would work better. Which again is weird given the lighter meringue you get to start with and mine being different.

Again, thanks for sharing. And I hope all this information helps someone.

Awesome Linda! Thanks for your comparison!

True, my SMBC when unflavored, you can taste the butter. But I think it enhances the flavoring after you add it, rather then tasting straight like the flavoring you add to it - does that make sense? Kind of like adding vanilla extract to everything - you can't taste the vanilla extract, it just helps give a flavor boost to your cake or whatever.

Interesting about the difference in ratios! Man, I love science with this stuff, change one little thing and get a totally different result. But one note, how "yellow" your finished BC is I think depends on the type of butter you use and how yellow it is to begin with. The butter I use is light in color with a high butterfat (83%), but maybe because I use organic sugar the molassas color in the sugar cancels out the yellow in the butter, resulting in a very slightly ivory buttercream?

Anyway, thanks again!

Jen

Hi Jen,
Yes, you are definitely right about using the different products. I use what I can get here. I wish I had the resources you have, but I don't.

I do know when I make my own butter, it is much lighter color. And I may just do that for my frosting. In fact that is exactly what I am going to try next.

The resulting SMBC color is probably going to be different everywhere. Given that the color of the butter is dependent on the diet of the cow. I may have this backwards, but I think a cow that is grass fed will product butter that is more yellow in color. I knew this once and have now forgotten. o in each are of the country we are going to have available to us cows fed different diets too. And the yellow color did not really change the appearance of the SMBC once I added the flavorings and food coloring. It's just one will not get an all white frosting using either method, so it is worth mentioning.

However, the color is not important to me. Taste and quality are more important. It was just an interesting observation, again because you use less butter. So in this case less is best!

thanks

FromScratch, I was interested to see that you use Amish butter. I used it in cookies this past Christmas and it was too much fat. When I made some brownie tarts, there was oil from the butter that seeped through the paper and pooled in the bottom of the mini muffin pan. I use all dairy from the PA Dutch market, but shied away from the butter because of that experience. Do you also bake with it? I would be interested in your opinion.

I think I will try it in buttercream. It is obviously high fat. Because it is from a local farm, the fat content is not displayed. It is wrapped in white waxed paper with just the weight and expiration... the same info as a piece of meat weighed at the butcher shop.

The market is only open Thu, Fri, Sat, so I will wait... They have cream cheese I have never tried also.

Linda, that may be my one good edge. Everything I get that is finer than grocery store offerings is through the internet. My husband goes to Annapolis every weekend and I do send him on some shopping trips.

thanks for posting this!
it's greatly appreciated,
Jodi

I'm unsure what role osmosis plays in either crusting or controlling water activity. (I think crusting is caused by evaporation in the outermost layer of frosting, but the only link I found which states this, is the site which cannot be named.

Shelf stability is the result of controlling water activity (as explained above).

American b/c's are pretty standardized, and it's fairly easy to determine from the recipes whether or not they'd be shelf stable. I use American b/c's and have researched what makes them shelf stable.

I didn't comment because European b/c's (couldn't find a definitive explanation of this term) and/or the meringue b/c's can use different ingredients, different proportions and different preparation techniques than American b/c's.

HTH

I shall be attempting my first ever cream cheese icing tomorrow, very exciting! So Ive been reading this thread thoroughly.

When it was first posted I followed the instruction to beat my IMBC on the slowest setting once the butter had been added. The recipe (Warren Browns) said to expect 4-5 cups. I got SIX! Was delighted I was also glad to hear that you feel adding flavour reduces the butter taste. I am not a butter fan, and Warrens recipe tastes buttery to me. I would like to experiment with ratios as Linda talked about, but at this stage think Id better learn to walk before I run.
A couple of questions:
FromScratch: You do not refrigerage your SMBC. Ever? What if you are making it a few days in advance, do you still leave it out? If so, how long do you leave it out for before youd throw it away?

You also stated you have used your cream cheese icing on cuppies that have been out for 12 hours. How is this OK with the cream cheese content? I recently bought a delicious cupcake from a shop, and was told it was cream cheese icing. They do not keep them refrigerated, and said I could keep them out for three days. I asked how that was possible with the cream cheese content, and they said it was because the sugar acted as a preservative, kinda like jam. Everything else Ive read says cream cheese MUST be refrigerated, until I re-read your thread today. So my question is, if that is true, is there a magic ratio of sugar to cream cheese which makes it safe? And once the cream cheese is added into the IMBC, how long is it safe for? (I dont know if her 3 day rule was due to the icing, or the cuppie going stale).

As a point of interest in regards to the colour of butter, our cows here in New Zealand are grass fed, and our butter is VERY yellow compared to American butter. I lived in the U.S.A. for about a year and a half, and remember being surprised about it. The steak tastes different too! Our standard butter is 82.9% fat, just FYI!

I also thought about what was said about the weight of egg whites, so I weighed the egg whites I was using in a recipe tonight. They weighed approximately 39g each, almost 1.4oz. Thats almost 50% larger than you stated.... hmmm.... clearly we have giant eggs here, and I might need to start weighing mine too.

Looking forward to trying this tomorrow, Ill be chomping at the bit all day tomorrow waiting for tomorrow night so I can start!

zespri, I'm a Warren Brown IMBC fan. His suggestion to raise the syrup temp to 245 makes a much stiffer base. I agree about the butter flavor, but only in the vanilla. For the vanilla, I use a liberal amount of VBP and homemade vanilla extract (w/beans) combined. This works for me. The homemade vanilla is strong and amazingly flavorful. If you would like the recipe, pm me. For other flavors, again I use liberal amounts. I have found that for each stick of butter, his IMBC will easily hold 1 tbsp of liquid, such as Bailey's, Key Lime juice, or puree.

I know nothing about adding the cream cheese, I bow to the master...

I made a carrot cake at the shop on Saturday that did not get purchased. Oh well, I guess I get to bring it home then!!! Anyway it was a cream cheese frosting that stayed out on the counter while we ate it for the next 3 days. None of us got sick. Yes, it is the sugar ratio, but I can't tell you what the magic number would be. My CC frosting is not a SMBC with cream cheese added. Mine is a more tangy, stronger CC flavor frosting.

But I am not saying don't refrigerate it. I do not want to be responsible for someone else leaving it our for eons and then blaming me.

And the recipe here is for SMBC, not IMBC, so there may be some differences with that also.

Yep, get a weight scale and weigh everything. Even our eggs are not consistent in weight. I weigh everything.

Angelfood4, your icing sounds awesomely good!!. I am not sure that awesomely is a word, but i made it one just now. Lol!!

Everyone's sounds good and thank you so much from scratch for putting your instructions on here. I have never tried the meringue buttercreams that everyone on here talks about so much mainly for 2 reasons. The instructions sounded complicated and 2 because of that I wasn't willing to risk having to throw a batch out. Sugar is so expensive these days as is everything else now. I will have to try it.

Does anyone on here know of a good orange cake, from scratch that is not the dreamsicle cake or creamsicle cake? I just tried a bite of the most scrumptious cake last night at a restaraunt. It was orange cake. very orangey in flavor and color, the icing I am not sure that it was a buttercream, but it was orange also. A buttercream would work, I know. BUt the difference in this cake and others that I have tried is this. on top of the cake it had lemon meringue on it on top of the icing. This was lemon meringue like the fillng for a pie. It was awesome. I would have never thought of that combination myself, but it was superb. Has anyone else ever had this? Thanks to anyone and everyone that might be able to help me out.

That sounds delicious! I have tried two orange cakes, one from Warren Brown's Cake Love calledl 'Sassy', and one from The Whimsical Bakehouse. Sassy is bold, Whimsical's is delicate. Both are good.

Besides Sassy on Cake Love, there's a Grand Marnier Chiffon Cake with White Chocolate Cream Frosting in Sky High. It's really good.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_mst/3262468794/in/photostream/

http://mashrabiyya.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/orange-grand-marnier-cake/

jules, it was probably a sweet curd. I made one that I wanted to add to IMBC and it was too sweet. But it was so good that I immediately developed a lemon meringue cupcake around it. I can dig it up if you are interested.

Linda, we have left our CC frosting out too. But I will never suggest it and I will instruct my customers to put it in the refrigerator. If you say two days, it may be there a week later. Lately, we do keep them in the refrigerator because it takes us forever to eat a full dessert. We just take out what we will eat and let it come to room temp.

imaginethatnj: thanks for the tip off for the Grand Marnier Orange cake. Will have to try that soon.

Scp1127, I would love for you to dig up what ever you have along that line and thank you. I am going to be experimenting until I find the combo I like. Also I took a small tast of the lemon meringue without the cake and icing and it was just like the pie filling you would make. It and the curds are very similiar in texture, but this was like a true pie filling. I am leaving tomorrow to go on a short vacation with my hubby and in-laws and very much looking forward to it. when I get back I have a couple of weeks before my parents get here and I may just be playing around with this. I know they would love it and I want to find the combination that was the closest to what I tried. We have an event coming up on October 1st at our church and so I know that I can make a cake for that and try one of the recipes and I found another on line the other night after I tried that cake. I just had to come home and try to find an orange cake recipe while I was still vividly remembering the flavors.

Has anyone made the Duncan Hines Orange cake? Is it real orangy in flavor? also n the past some have made the comment that to add orange juice instead of water to a recipe would add more sugar and I can see that, but how exactly does that affect the baking and quality of the cake's outcome? I am no scientist and in my mind I would not have thought it to be a problem because I was using liquid, but I can see that many of you have much more experience experimenting than I do. I do not have the money for flops that can not be eaten. Thanks for any help and explanations.

I've made the WASC recipe on here and just used orange juice for the liquid without changing the sugar and added the zest of an orange as well. Turned out very orangy. I then made a swiss meringue buttercream and used about 2 Tbsp of grand marnier for flavouring and it was really good.

pmarks, thank you. I have never tried Grand Marnier before. Is it really orangy? This sounds really good. May try this.