Hi,

I am making a cake for a birthday celebration, and the recipe gave the recipe for an Italian meringue frosting. A mixture of brown sugar, light corn syrup and water is heated to soft ball stage, and then drizzled into egg whites and cream of tartar, whipping until a meringue forms.

I think I did the meringue part correctly, but I waited a half hour to frost my cake as I was waiting for the layers to cool. When I started to frost, the frosting looked spongy, and the bottom of the bowl had liquid in it.

I still frosted my cake, but am now worried… various websites indicated that the frosting would be OK for 48 hours, but the frosting went from dreamy to spongy so quickly that I am now quite worried…

What did I do wrong? Will the cake last until tomorrow afternoon? Or should I just start over?

Any help would be very much appreciated…

Typically, Italian Meringue frostings heat the syrup past the softball stage to 248 - 250 degrees.  They do get a bit spongy on standing, but rebeating will restore the texture.  I do think, though, if you didn’t get the syrup at least to 248, the frosting may not hold up.

I think that may have been it… my recipe states to heat the syrup until the softball stage, which I believe is 238F (I used a candy thermometer to be absolutely certain), and then instructs me to take it off the heat immediately. Which I did. Now I know that it needs to go beyond that.

I tried re-beating a small test batch, but it didn’t come back together… more like pudding consistency than the stiff peaks I had before…

Would the Italian meringue frosting be OK at room temp for a day or so?

That depends on what your room temp is.  I think it is supposed to be ok at cool room temp for a day or so but probably not during summer and definitely not in the tropics.