Aquafaba Swiss Buttercream Recipe - Gretchen's Vegan Bakery (2024)

FAQs

What are the disadvantages of Swiss meringue buttercream? ›

Cons: Requires some time and patience, as well as a double boiler and candy thermometer, which can be intimidating. SMBC will soften quickly in warmer conditions. Learn how to make and decorate with Swiss meringue buttercream like a pro in the FREE Bluprint mini-class Modern Buttercream.

It's essential to sieve your icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar) before adding to the softened butter, so do this first. Then you're going to add little by little to the vegan buttercream frosting, beating between additions. This again stops the buttercream from splitting or becoming grainy.

Your ingredients were too cold or too hot

If you use vegan butter straight from the fridge, you might end up with small lumps of it throughout your buttercream. This can also happen if you add cold (vegan) milk at the end. Similarly, adding fat or milk that is too warm can cause buttercream to curdle.

I recommend Miyoko's vegan butter for the best all around vegan butter. for a nut-free vegan butter option. Other great options include Flora Plant Butter, and Earth Balance. More on which butter brand to use below!

What are good vegan butter substitutes? In baking, you can use vegan butter, applesauce, dairy-free yogurt, coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, nut butter, mashed banana and mashed avocado. In cooking, you can use olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable stock, or avocado oil to replace butter.

Swiss meringue buttercream is probably the most standard buttercream for pastry professionals. It is incredibly smooth, making it an extremely popular choice for icing cakes.

If yours tastes like you're eating a stick of butter, perhaps your meringue wasn't whipped to stiff peaks before adding butter, or the butter was too cold, in which case it just needs some more whipping. Or you added too much butter.

Swiss meringue buttercream frosting is very similar to Italian meringue buttercream in that they both use egg whites. Swiss is preferred by many bakers because it doesn't use the hot sugar syrup and the egg whites are heated to 160 F in a double boiler to remove any salmonella risk.

When the frosting's temperature drops below 69°F (21°C), its butter content will stiffen, bit by bit, until the frosting breaks into a curdled mess. But between those extremes, when the butter is pliable but cool, the frosting will be silky and light—perfect for spreading over your favorite cake.

The two main differences between traditional and dairy-free buttercream frosting are: The dairy butter is replaced with vegan butter. The whipping cream or milk is replaced with non-dairy milk.

How do you keep vegan buttercream from melting? ›

The buttercream will be fine at room temperature on the counter, but if it is hotter than normal, or the cake is still warm, the buttercream will melt. So make sure your cakes are fully cooled before icing them and your kitchen isn't toasty.

Too thick: If you over-whip the frosting, it will appear chunky and curdled. While my fix isn't perfect, it will certainly help—by hand, stir in more liquid heavy cream 1 Tablespoon at a time until the frosting smooths out again.

Swiss meringue buttercream is either soupy or curdled due to the temperature of the butter; it is either too warm or too cold. Both issues can be fixed either chilling or gently heating the buttercream.

Coconut oil is a delicious vegan alternative to butter as it behaves similarly to butter compared to other oils. It solidifies when cool and melts at room temperature, making it very versatile. If you use unrefined coconut oil, you can expect a more distinctive taste, but refined coconut oil is basically flavourless.

Kerrygold, Organic Valley, and other European styles unsalted butter are great to the taste of buttercream too.

The short answer is while there is no exact rule for substituting the fats in your recipes, you'll likely be able to use butter or shortening as a one-to-one swap for margarine.