Best Imbc (Italian Meringue Buttercream)
Decorating By hmoffett Updated 23 Jul 2007 , 8:39pm by Cindy_Gl
ShirleyW's recipe is popular (and it uses less butter so it's a bit lighter tasting):
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2426-Italian-Meringue-Buttercream--Shirleys-Method.html
HTH
I like Shirley's recipe minus the orange (sorry Shirley 
). I like it with just vanilla.. mmmmm.
Ah, how nice. Thanks ladies. Yes, the orange is a personal favorite of mine because it cuts the sweetness and I think adds a fresh taste. But to each his own, we all have our own taste, the nice thing is you can add any extract you like to it or just use straight vanilla.
IMBC is not the same as boiled icing. It is made by beating a hot (240 degrees F) sugar syrup into stiffly beaten eggwhites and then adding butter and a flavoring at the end.
It's very good. I have no problems piping with it and can make roses with little difficulty. The only thing is that it gets soft when it gets warm in the bag.. so I usually have 2 bags going so I can put one down if it gets warm. I have hot hands to so it could be worse for me than some. I have a cake in my photos made with IMBC (Shirley's recipe too BTW 
) and it is 100% IMBC.. even the drop flowers. I just piped them on parchment and froze them so I could transfer them to the cake. It does not crust like a lot of PC buttercreams. I prefer it 100% over PS buttercream though.. it's smooth as silk and not gritty at all.
No problem..
and LOL.. that should say PS buttercreams.. not PC buttercreams.. 
It depends on who you ask.. some will say it gets to temp while other will say no. Personally I am not worried about it.. I have eaten so many things with raw/undercooked eggs (eggs over easy anyone?) in my time and never been ill from it. Unless you are cooking for people with conpromised immune systems it should be more than fine.. you can always use pasturized eggwhites too. You can find them in the grocery store in cartons that look like milk cartons. All Whites is a popular brand and Egg Beaters has just whites in a carton too.. just make sure it says egg whites and not egg replacer.. the regualr egg beaters will give you a very nasty concoction if you try to make BC with it.. 
You can also make SMBC where you cook the sugar and whites together before you whip them up. You can easily get it to 160 degrees for a few minutes and pasturize the mixture.
Well there are million things that could have caused themto get sick from the ice cream. With most egg based ice creams the eggs and cream are cooked to the custard stage first so that wouldn't have been the issue. It's so hard to know what the illness came from unless they had everything tested. But if you are worried.. use the pasturized eggs or you can temper you own eggs over a double boiler.. just keep whisking and use a candy thermometer until they reach 160 degrees. I took a couple microbiology classes in college and it makes you realize how the whole chain of contamination happens. I was never a germ-a-phobe before and after those classes I am even less of a germ-a-phobe. 
I've made both Shirley's and the Whimsical Bakehouse IMBC and I like Shirley's better. It is a bit more dense than WBH and it doesn't take as long to cool the egg whites once the sugar syrup is added. I use 2 sticks unsalted and 1 stick salted when I make Shirley's and then flavor it according to what my friends want. The two big favorites lately are caramel flavor made with caramel sundae syrup and mango made with Alphonso mango puree (from Indian grocers). Both are divine!!! If I'm doing a flavor, I just use vanilla, but I really like it with lemon or orange also.
You can make this ahead of time, but in the ten or so times I've done it, it always has the best consistency for icing the cake immediately out of the mixer. Someone else might have a trick that I've missed or it might be a matter of temperature in our house - we are at 78 with the A/C here.
Someone asked about heat - in Florida it won't work outdoors 75% of the time. It's just too soft. However, if your cake is in A/C it should be just fine.
It can be challenging to pipe with it if you have hot hands. I just did this cake (link below) Saturday and I would do a flower or two, stick the bag in the fridge and work with a new bag for a few minutes. It doesn't pipe well if it's too cold, but also not too hot. It sounds complicated, but it's not. You just have to let the icing get away from warm hands when it starts to throw some attitude your way!
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=817853
The good news about IMBC is that once you make it, you won't go back! It's divine - everyone at the shower I made the above cake for talked about how smooth and not-overly sweet the icing was. My daughter prefers regular BC, but she's four. She's in it for the sugar. IMBC really accents the cake without overpowering it.
Good luck!
Christy
If you make it ahead and refrigerate or freeze it, the best way to bring it back is to let it get to room temp then take your mixer bowl with the icing in it and place it over a pot of boiling water and melt it down a little and then whip it back up. it takes longer, but it comes out like you just made it. HTH's!
One of my favorite flavors is raspberry. Just take some raspberries and puree them and run through a strainer (or buy it pre-strained if you can find it) and sweeten it to your liking. Add it to the buttercream until you get the flavor you want. It is to die for! Chocolate is also more than wonderful!
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