Baked Strawberry Butter Cream

I had so much baking planned for today, but the Superbowl and my fiance were obviously a bad combination for getting work done. I did manage to make some sugar cookie dough and baked strawberry butter cream for some Valentine's Day macarons. I have talked about my baked strawberry butter cream before, but I did not give thorough instruction so I am going to give it to you now!

I adapted this recipe from Technicolour Kitchen's blog by using a different technique for the meringue portion, but the ingredients are basically the same with a few added suggestions and tips. 

Ingredients:

Baked Strawberries:

1 Package of Strawberries; halved with the stems removed (the amount doesn't really matter, it just depends on how much strawberry flavour you want to pack in there!)

60 grams of Granulated Sugar (original recipe states caster sugar or berry sugar, but I trialed both types of sugars and there weren't any noticeable differences)

Butter Cream

100 grams Granulated Sugar

1/4 Cup of Water

3 Extra Large Egg Whites

170 grams Unsalted Butter (don't use margarine!) at room temperature

The Method:

Baked Strawberries

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F

Take the halved strawberries and place them in a glass baking dish (make sure it isn't too shallow as it could bubble up although I have never experienced any spillage).

Take the 60 grams of granulated sugar and sprinkle it over top of the strawberries. Make sure that they are all evenly coated in the sugar.

Place strawberries in the preheated oven and let the strawberries bake for about 20-30 minutes. 

Check on it at around 15 minutes to make sure that they are not turning black as this creates an undesirable flavour. The strawberries at this point should be surrounded by bubbling sugar. Take a fork to check the strawberries readiness. If the fork easily spears the strawberries, then they are definitely ready! 

Let the strawberries cool completely before transferring them to a sieve to drain the strawberry syrup. You can save the syrup to pour over shaved ice for a delicious cool treat or experiment by adding it to other baked goods.

Butter Cream

Take the egg whites and place them into your stand mixer. If you are like how I was a month ago, then place the egg whites into a heat proof bowl and get ready to whip like crazy (I am wishing you good luck and commending you in advance if you are trying to do this by hand)

Place the water and sugar in a medium sized pot and place your digital candy thermometer in the pot. Turn your stove's heat on to medium low. Do not turn it any higher as sugar has a tendency to burn in the blink of an eye. 

While the sugar and water are heating, whip up your egg whites until they have stiff peaks.

When the temperature of the sugar reaches 244.5 degrees F, quickly take it off of the stove and slowly pour the heated sugar and water into the egg whites while the whites are continually being whipped (either by your stand mixer or your own hand with a whisk---at least by the end of this, you will have massive biceps, triceps and whatever other muscles you use to whisk!) Whisk on medium high for about 2-3 minutes or until soft peaks form. At this point, the meringue should look shiny and white. 

*note that sometimes the temperature will bounce up and down while the sugar and water are heating. Just be patient and whatever you do, do not move the pot around.

Don't worry if the meringue isn't as stiff as usual, adding the butter will automatically stiffen up the mixture. Slowly add in the butter (make sure that it is actually at room temperature or else your butter cream will turn out chunky). Whip the meringue and butter until smooth. DO NOT over beat. I accidentally did this twice when I first started making butter cream. Although it still tastes delicious, it isn't as attractive when the butter cream isn't smooth.

Put the drained strawberries into a food processor and whip it until desired texture. I like pulsing my mixture to maintain the chunkiness of the strawberries. It gives the butter cream a unique texture, but feel free to whip the strawberries a bit longer to form a paste as Technicolour Kitchen advises.

Take the strawberries and fold them into the butter cream.

If you are icing cupcakes, cakes or filling macarons, fit your piping bag with a medium sized tip (or none at all), cut off the tip and fill with your deliciously refreshing butter cream. I am using this baked strawberry butter cream to fill some macarons so I will post pictures of the finished butter cream next time.

If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Beautiful Baking Sweeties