# Adding gelatin into (IM) Buttercream? How?



## lucidbaking (Jan 4, 2012)

Well for a start, i live in singapore (hot and humid tropical country) and the climate here is really making me crazy due to the high heat and moisture. Its always around 30 degree celcius hot here (30+ in the day and at least 27 in the night) and humidity is around 90%. Its Monsoon season right now i think humidity is hitting the roof T_T. 

When i make buttercream in room temperature, it ALWAYS turns too soft to work with.., so one day I came across a post online somwhere on stabilizing buttercreams with gelatin... IT IS WHAT I NEED!!!! however the post did not mention how and when to add the gelatin in...

I tried dissolving 3.5 gelatine sheets in cream (instead of water) and adding it into my 2eggswhites (60g) italian meringue (before adding cold butter), but after adding the cream+gelatine mixture my meringue turns watery!!! ok i know its dumb to add fluid into the meringue.

Another occassion i tried adding the same amount of gelatine into a 3eggwhites(90g) IMBC, by trying to dissolve the gelatine in crisco before add it into the meringue+butter. Its difficult to dissolve the gelatine in the shortening.... 

Or should i dissolve gelatin into melted warm butter (sounds wrong) then add into the buttercream?

This is the recipe i use:

Italian Meringue Butter cream (in ratio)

Egg whites : N grams

Sugar (for sugar Syrup) : N 

water: amount just enough to soak sugar  /  N grams **

glucose: approx 2.5g per eggwhite

Butter: 2N

Crisco: N

- I hate the taste of shortening but i think its essential in the BC for its stability. Well, i do see some improvements in the texture (but its not good enough). The BC is still soft

- In singapore, we generally prefer desserts that are on the less sweet side. So normally i would try to keep the ratio of sugar to 2 TBSP: 30g Eggwhite. I do find high sugar content helps in getting a silkier texture IMBC, but is there any tip on the minimum amount of sugar (syrup) needed to make a nice and stable IMBC?

** previously i used a recipe which indicated the amount of water needed is "just enough to soak sugar", then later i tried another recipe which says to add the same weight of water as sugar to make the syrup, I do discover that with more water, the buttercream is smoother.... but still not very stiff. 

When we use water to dissolve/soften gelatine sheets/powder, will the water content destroy the meringue???

another question, to what stage do you guys heat the sugar syrup too? some says soft ball (which i used to do) and a few says hard (now i use hard), i think hard ball stage makes the IMBC nicer to pipe in the hot weather. Can anyone tell me the science behind this? Why hard ball stage??


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

I usually cook my syrup to 118 C.

Gelatin will only dissolve in water, it will never dissolve in a fat.

I've never added gelatin to buttercream, but if I had to, I would melt the disslolved sheets in as little as 1 tbsp of water, and add this to the meringue, before adding the butter.

I do understand your problem with IM buttercrem melting in hot humid conditions.  Personally I would try the following:

Find a "dryer" butter, something with 83-85 butterfat content.  I doubt if Cold Storage, NTUC, or Poon Huat will have this, don't know if Jason's still exists, but maybe Win-Sin will carry a better grade of butter. Less water content to the butter, the higher melting point it will have.

Use clarified butter, butter with the water removed.  Melt butter in a pot, let it harden, and drain off the water when the butter has solidified.

Subsitute part of the butter with white chocolate. Cocoa butter has a much higher melting point than dairy butter, or, if you can get it, subsitute some of the butter with  cocoa butter.

Hope this helps


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## lucidbaking (Jan 4, 2012)

hihi

Thank you for your infor!!! Learnt a great deal of infor from you 

Well I use E&V butter which has 82% fat, is this amount of butterfat considered dry enough?

And by the way, i did not describe what i did correctly on my post.... I did dissolve the gelatine sheets  in water first, then stir them into crisco, but well as you say gelatin will not dissolve in fat, so most prob it means that the gelatine mixture will not blend into crisco too, hahahhah! 

On another hand, i tried adding, like one tbsp, of cream into italian meringue and the meringue collapse..... I'm not sure on the science behind this but all i can thought of is : no "water" into meringue until u add fat. Is this right? 

Will experiment all of these soon. will post result here. 

Btw, you mention the Win-sin, which brand of butter would u reccomend??? 

and on clarifying butter, it turn ghee right? How so now its 100% butter, do i have to reduce the amount of butter in the IMBC proportionately too? Greasy IMBC is eeek.......esp when they are sooo soft in room temp T_T

Nono on white choc, too sweet


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

82% is pretty standard, but there are other "drier" butters out there, especially the European ones. Haven't been back to S'pore since 2005, so I don't know what Win-Sin tocks

When you substitute ghee for butter, the resulting effect will be a much stiffer buttercream since there is 0 added water as opposed to 18% water from regular butter. You should be able to cut back by 10% on the ghee amount. If you find it too stiff, you can cut back on the ghee and add in more butter.

No, meringue has water in it, the water present in both the eggwhites and the syrup. Meringue will not beat at all if any fat is introduced _*before*_ it is stiff, and cream usually contains 30-34% fat


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## prettycake (Dec 23, 2011)

Alton Brown had an episode on this..  That is the Italian Buttercream.


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