This frosting is fantastic! The stiffly beaten egg whites make it fluffy and voluminous. I think this is my new favorite frosting. Bonus: it tastes similar to buttercream frosting. Experiment with color by adding food coloring if you’re not a fan of boring white frosting. (Normally I am!) If you need color inspiration, check out the Foodnetwork Magazine website’s Frost by Numbers: How to Make Frosting Colors.
ingredients.
- 4 extra-large egg whites
- 3/4 c. sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 c. butter, cut into pieces, softened
- Food coloring (optional)
directions.
- Whisk the egg whites, sugar and salt in a heat-proof bowl set in a saucepan of simmering water (low simmer) until the mixture is warm and the sugar dissolves. Remove the bowl from the pan and let cool slightly.
- Beat the egg white mixture in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, 12 to 15 minutes. Beat in the butter a few pieces at a time, then continue beating until smooth. To color the frosting, divide into two 1-cup portions and follow the color chart.
This recipe was fun to experiment with as I’ve never made an egg white based frosting and I rarely make colored frosting. I didn’t have any red food coloring so my color choices were a bit more narrow than I would have liked. Because the recipe makes two cups of frosting I doubled the amount of drops called for to make ‘pistachio’ colored frosting – I can’t say my pistachio turned out to be as vibrant as the color in the magazine. After frosting half my cupcakes I added additional color to make ‘mojito’ — again, the color didn’t seem as vibrant. But fun nonetheless!
The original recipe I followed says not to place your bowl of egg whites directly in contact with the water while simmering. I removed this direction because I didn’t see it when I was making my frosting, (therefore) didn’t follow it, and didn’t have a problem with my frosting (made from egg whites that were in a bowl touching simmering water).
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 