BUTTERCREAM ICING

A couple of weeks ago, I made a cake for my friend, Steve, who was home from Afghanistan.  As many of you know, I used to make and sell cakes many years ago, and although I do enjoy making and decorating the occasional cake for friends and family, I have no desire to get back into the cake selling business. 

At the Welcome Home Steve potluck, some of the ladies asked me about my icing recipe.  I was going to type it and send it to all of them through the email, but since I had nothing to blog about today, I just thought I'd make this my entry for today.  Exciting stuff, right?

There are a couple of different recipes Wilton has and both are very tasty and I've done different variations with success, so just use your imagination - after all, how bad can icing and cake be - it is ALWAYS awesome as long as there's lots of it!  (Any wonder why I can't lose weight?)

Here is the snow-white buttercream icing recipe.  If you plan to decorate and color a lot of the icing, it is good to have the snow white version just so the slight yellowing does not alter your look. 

SNOW WHITE ICING
1 cup white crisco shortening
1 tsp. pure white vanilla
1 tsp. butter flavoring
1 tsp. salt
1 lb. powdered sugar
3-9 Tablespoons water (the less water, the more stiff your icing will be)

Mix thoroughly.

Now, if you don't know what butter flavoring is or where to find pure white vanilla, just check out the Wilton aisle in any Walmart or Michaels, or for a bigger bottle of both at a better price, try a cake supply store.

This will give you a pristine white icing.
I like to frost my cake as smooth as possible, then let it "air dry" for 10-15 minutes.  Take a paper towel that has a quilted pattern to it and carefully and lightly press the paper towel flat across the cake.  It will put the quilted pattern into your icing and also smooth out the knife marks you get when you frost.  If the paper towel sticks, wait another 5 minutes and try again.

 

See the pattern from the paper towel?

For those who don't care about a slight yellow tint to the icing, use this recipe:

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 lb. powdered sugar

3-4 T. water

Hint #2:  Always at least double this recipe.  It is easier because 1)it is not enough to properly frost the cake (unless you are an Anderson and take off the extra icing before you eat it) and 2) powdered sugar usually comes in 2 lb. bags and it is easier to just dump in the entire bag :-)

Variations to this:

Chocolate Buttercream:  Just add 3 oz. melted unsweetened chocolate squares, or 3/4 cup cocoa to the above recipes.

Chocolate mocha:  make the chocolate buttercream but substitute strong coffee in place of the water.

Excuse me now, I think I need to go make some cupcakes!