Techniques: Working With Your Electric Mixer

This page is really an addendum to the mixing methods page.  The techniques listed here describe how to make different components, and how to make them well.  It didn’t seem right to lump them with mixing methods.

Sources: The New Food Lover’s Companion, Baking & Pastry Fundamentals (Johnson & Wales Textbook), How Baking Works, AllRecipes.com, Wikipedia, my personal class notes, my senior thesis, BraveTart

Whipping Heavy Cream / Making Whipped Cream
Whipping Egg Whites / Making a French Meringue / Buttercream

Whipping Heavy Cream / Making Whipped Cream
Making whipped cream is one of the most common techniques used in the bake shop.  Whipped cream is used as a topping, an icing, a filling, and for lightening/adding volume/adding texture to a product such as a mousse.  Making whipped cream at home is highly undervalued and canisters of spray whipped cream or tubs of whipped topping are used in its place.  If you are using an electric mixer, making whipped cream shouldn’t take any more than 5 minutes.

To make whipped cream, add heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to your electric mixer’s bowl.  Start on low speed to incorporate the powdered sugar.  Once the powdered sugar has been absorbed by the cream begin to whip on high.  Eventually the cream will thicken into a soft creamy foam.  The more you whip heavy cream the stiffer it will become.  Stiffer whipped cream holds its shape better when formed or piped while softer whipped cream has a better mouth feel in regards to texture.  The general rule about whipped cream stiffness is, if the whipped cream is used in a glass dessert where it won’t be standing on its own a soft peak whipped cream should be used.  When whipped cream is used as a topping or for piping it should be fairly stiff or in the medium peak stage.  When being folded into a product, whipped cream should also be in soft or medium peak stage otherwise the product you’re folding the whipped cream in may become thick, stiff, and have an unpleasant texture.

If you over whip whipped cream you will create butter.  So avoid walking away from your mixer once you’ve began the process.  Whip cream can keep over night, but because it needs to sit the fridge it may have firmed up and be less usable the next day – even if it was just in soft peak stage.  Simply rewhip this whipped cream with some heavy cream in an attempt to soften the old whipped cream.

The most obvious way to customize your whipped cream and add flavor is by extracts or oils.  Another way to add flavor to whipped cream is to boil the heavy cream on the stove and infuse it with a spice, herb, or tea.  After steeping with the spice return to the fridge until cold.  Once the heavy cream has cooled down completely you can whip it right away.  I created a very dreamy lavender whipped cream this way.

Whipping Egg Whites / Making a French Meringue

Making meringues is another common technique in the bakeshop.  It is more difficult than whipping heavy cream but there are few tricks you can use that will help make sure every time you whip egg whites you get the thick, strong, foamy, meringue you’re looking for.

First, always wash your bowl with very hot soapy water.  This helps make sure all fats and oils are washed away from your electric mixing bowl.  Any fat left on your bowl can inhibit the whipping process.  Always use a stainless steel bowl since plastic bowls can retain fat and aluminum bowls can make egg whites gray.

Second, always wipe out your bowl with a paper towel damp with vinegar.  This helps break up any fat in the bowl, making sure it is doubly clean.  This also has a second added benefit – a little acid added to egg whites alters the egg white’s pH which helps stabilize them.  You should also wipe out any bowls that your egg whites will come in contact with (if you are separating them in different bowls) and any utensils they will come in contact with before they are whipped (such as the whip attachment on your mixer).

Third, make sure your egg whites are separated very well.  When you use shell eggs and separate them by hand you must make sure no egg yolk is in the egg whites.  Just like fat in the bowl can inhibit the whipping process, egg yolks can also prevent the egg whites from reaching their maximum volume.  For this reason you may want to use different bowls to separate your eggs.  That way in case you smash an egg by accident, or if there is something wrong with your egg in general, it doesn’t ruin the rest of the batch.

These three rules are the most reliable tips for making sure your meringue comes out each time perfectly.  Though even if you follow them there may be times where your meringue still fails to whip up properly.  Bad things happen and there’s no use dwelling on them.  Just start over and try again.

Whipped egg whites are called by two different names: meringues and chiffons.  There are different definitions generally accepted for both terms and chefs and home bakers alike argue over which definition is the real definition.  Some people believe the difference is the ratio of sugar.  Meringues always contain a ratio of two parts sugar and one part egg white.  Anything other than this ratio is a chiffon.  Other people believe the difference is the sugar altogether.  Meringues always have sugar, but chiffons do not.  Personally, I believe that any whipped egg white whether it has sugar or not is a chiffon, and meringues must always have sugar to be a meringue.  So a meringue is always a chiffon, but a chiffon is not always a meringue.  Whatever definition you choose to follow is correct – and don’t let anybody bully you into otherwise!

Meringues can be over whipped.  Many chefs believe it is very easy to over whip egg whites but I don’t necessarily believe that’s true.  As long as you watch your bowl and pay attention to what your egg whites are doing you should be fine.  Meringues should be foamy, thick, airy, firm, and somewhat shiny.  The firm part depends on whether you whipped them to soft, medium, or stiff peaks.  Your egg whites are at their firmest at stiff peaks.  If you continue to whip your egg whites after stiff peaks you will end up destroying your stiff peak meringue.  They will lose some volume, become a little dull, lose their firmness, become clumpy, and may even have a curdled egg appearance.  You should use your own judgment on whether the egg whites can still be used or not – depending on how over whipped they have become.  Some people recommend adding one egg white to the over whipped meringue to try and save it.

French meringues are also called cold meringues and are the easiest of the meringues to make.  It is made by whipping egg whites and slowly adding granulated sugar to the egg whites.  First, begin whipping the egg whites.  Then when they get foamy, start to slowly add in the sugar in a steady stream.  Then continue whipping the egg whites until they get to the soft peak or stiff peak stage you are looking for.  French meringues are commonly used to make cookies or to fold into other products such as cake batter and mousse.  French meringues often have powdered sugar added to them to make them even sweeter which affects the texture and the flavor slightly.  Some meringues have ground nuts folded in to add flavor.

UPDATE (2/14/12):  I recently learned from one of my favorite food blogs BraveTart that you can just add all the sugar in the beginning of making a French meringue and whip it up.  This is similar to how a Swiss meringue begins.  I gave it a try and it works.  This helps speed up the process immensely and gives you a cleaner product over all.

Here’s video demonstrating how to make a French or Cold meringue:

There are two other meringues that are fairly common in the bakeshop: Swiss and Italian.  Swiss meringue is made by heating egg whites carefully over a double boiler with sugar to 110 degrees F.  This helps remove some of the water from the egg whites making them stronger.  Since the sugar is dissolved in the egg whites when it is heated this make Swiss meringue smoother than French meringue.  Products made from Swiss meringue, rather than French meringue, are firmer and will hold their shape better.  Swiss meringue can be turned into Swiss buttercream but is also used to make cookies, petits fours, coconut macaroons, and baked Alaska.  Because of the way that Swiss meringue is made, bake shops have a difficult time making large batches of Swiss meringue quickly and easily.  For this reason, French meringue and Italian meringue are much more common in bake shops.

Italian meringues are even smoother and stronger than Swiss meringues.  Italian meringues are made using a simple syrup that has been heated to 250 degrees F.  The process starts off by making a French meringue then slowly drizzling the hot simple syrup into the French meringue and whipping until cool.  Italian meringues are considered the most labor intensive of the meringues and icings made from Italian meringue (Italian buttercream) are the most prized of all buttercreams (though some chefs prefer Swiss buttercream).  Italian meringue is most often used to make Italian buttercream but are also used to make floating islands dessert, lighten mousse, and chiboust cream.

The deciding factor between whether you make a Swiss meringue or an Italian meringue will probably be the size of the batch or the size of your mixer.  Swiss meringues are much more convenient when working with small batches since they require a double boiler.  Italian meringues are more convenient when making large batches.  Since you pour the sugar in, if the batch is too small you will almost without a doubt hit the whip or the side of the bowl.  The result will be chunks of sugar in your icing or the sugar not getting incorporated at all.

To make a buttercream out of any of the meringues just add room temperature butter.  Since butter is firm when it’s cold, icings will always work better when they are chilled and when the room you are working in is cool.  Warm or hot buttercream will always be soupy and will be difficult to ice with – especially on the sides.  You can also keep your buttercream cool by using the refrigerator.  Also, when adding butter to the meringue to make buttercream, if the room is warm the butter and egg whites will not come together – the icing is not ruined – just cool down the room and place the icing in the fridge until cool.  Then whip it up again.