Frosting Recipes

Frosting recipes rely upon fat to create flavor and texture.  As we see, there is enormous variety in the fats used in frosting recipes.  We seen cream cheese and whipped cream but also yogurt and avocados.  All of these contribute to a rich, delicious cake or cupcake frosting.

Two of the most common fats used to make frosting from scratch are butter and vegetable shortening.   Just like in pie crust recipes, bakers have very strong feelings about which one (or combination of the two) produce the best results.

The advantage of using butter in a frosting recipe  is its flavor.  Butter adds a rich, melt-in-your-mouth feeling to the frosting.  Using vegetable shortening can be preferable for its texture, because it makes for a lighter, fluffier frosting.  However, shortening is all fat (butter is around 80% fat) and not especially flavorful.

The solution?  We’re now trying a combination of butter and trans-fat free vegetable shortening (Smart Balance, Spectrum Organics and Crisco make it) to achieve the best frosting flavor and texture.  Ratio of each to be determined! We’ll let you know how it goes.

This is a buttercream frosting that is a favorite of my mother’s. She always uses this on her cakes, and they are always delicious. It turns out great every single time, but you have to be a little careful when you are adding the milk to get the consistency that you want. Anyone can make this!

Easy Buttercream Frosting Recipe

¼ cup butter, softened
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup milk

Cream butter, salt, vanilla, and 1 cup powdered sugar in mixer bowl until light and fluffy. Add remaining powdered sugar alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition. Beat until smooth and creamy. Adjust powdered sugar and milk if necessary for desired consistency.

Do you like to decorate cakes for special events? The recipe below is a simple recipe for decorator’s frosting that anyone can do! This is yet another favorite of my mother’s. She used this frosting for our birthday cakes, graduation cakes, and every other special event that we had. Both the frosting recipes that you see here would go great on any flavor cake, but with the Decorator’s Frosting, you have to be careful to match the type of flavoring that you add with the flavor of the cake that you are making.

Decorator’s Frosting

1 cup shortening
2 pounds powdered sugar
½ cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 teaspoons flavoring

Cream shortening in mixer bowl until light. Add powdered sugar, water, corn syrup, and desired flavoring; beat until fluffy.

I hope these recipes have been helpful and that they make your cake a hit!

To see more easy recipes for desserts, casseroles, main dishes, and side dishes, please visit my website at:
http://www.allaboutcooking101.blogspot.com