Sounds great! Thought my wife doesn't let me eat peanut butter (she's allergic to it and I get penalized!), the last one there sounds great!
Four Fun Frosting Formulas
Photo: Flirty Kitty
We all know it saves money to make our food at home. A few of us even manage to bake a cake or two from scratch. But when it comes to frosting, we freak. We dish out and buy the expensive stuff with the extra packaging because we don't feel up to the challenge. Grant you, some frostings require a culinary degree and the patience of Job, but not all of them. Here are four simple frosting recipes that are low on ingredients and cost, and high on flavor.
Cream Cheese.
One eight ounce package of softened cream cheese, 2 cups of confectioners' sugar, 1 stick of butter and a splash of vanilla. Mix with an electric mixture until it's creamy enough to suit you, and spread on the baked good of your choice.
Confectionary Sugar Glaze.
One cup confectioners' sugar, 3 tablespoons milk or water, 1 tsp of the flavor extract of your choice. Mix it up. It should be think enough to drizzle over a bundt cake. If the weather conditions where you are throw off the consistency of it, just add a bit more moisture until you get it gets drippy but not liquid.
Chocolate.
This is basically cocoa, powdered sugar, vanilla and butter with a little milk or water mixed in. Whip it up with a hand mixer and spread to your heart's content. Here's a link to an easy recipe.
Peanut Butter.
I suppose you could use this frosting with any number of goods, but my favorite pairing is with chocolate cake. Here's a link to a simple recipe with few ingredients.
These should get you started. It's not fudge or candy, folks. I promise. If you're truly hankering for a homemade treat to serve after dinner, mix up a basic cake and whip up one of these fun frosting formulas to top the whole thing off. You can do it. For more frugal food ideas, check out this bread article, some ideas for saving money on the egg front, cheap seafood and making the most of imitation crab meat.
This article was included in the May 26th, 2009 Make it from Scratch carnival.
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Once you realize how easy and delicious homemade frosting is you'll never go back to the canned stuff. The Better Homes and Gardens basic cook book has a good butter frosting like the one you mention. That's my standard frosting and it dresses up a cake very nicely. It freezes fairly well too.
My mom used to make sandwich cookies with leftover frosting and graham crackers.
Two of my favorite frostings were hugely popular back in the day, but you hardly see them anymore.
They're both pretty similar in end results--incredibly fluffy and sweet but light.
Here's a basic recipe for 7-minute frosting, which involves whipping egg whites and a few other things over a double boiler for--seven minutes!:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Seven-Minute-Frosting-I/Detail.aspx
And here's a recipe for boiled frosting, which is somewhat similar (you boil the mixture and beat the egg whites separately, then combine) but requires the use of a candy thermometer to get the temperature right:
http://www.texascooking.com/recipes/flufboil.htm
Boiled frosting is somewhat more stable than 7-minute frosting, but they both are best for things that will be eaten within a day or so. They're especially great for cupcakes, because you can just dip the cupcakes in and get cool peaks and swirls.
My favorite frosting is half buttercream, half paste (flour & water boiled together until thick, then cooled.) My mom's recipe is labeled "boiled & beaten" frosting.
It takes a little planning, becauase of the cooling time, but it's made of things we have on hand (butter, sugar, flour, water or milk, vanilla), and costs about half what straight buttercream does, since butter is the expensive ingredient.
Frosting is a great thing to switch to homemade, because unlike puff pastry, pie crust or croissant, frosting is really easy to make and easy to fix if you mess it up (though if you keep adjusting the sugar & fat you'll end up with a lot of frosting.) And if you have kids, the dishes get cleaned up *fast*
Thanks for the additional ideas, guys. There really are loads of frostings you can make. I picked these four because I felt they offered the greatest range of simplicity, affordability, and flavor. However, there are tons more options, including the ones mentioned above.
Does anyone have a "to die for" German chocolate cake frosting recipe that's simple? I heart that stuff.
Thanks for the tips, Myscha. Good frosting is hard to come by, and eating the kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth like butter can ruin the cake eating experience.
