Amazing Vanilla Frosting

This is a knock-your-socks-off frosting that is not too sweet, but super light & yummy. It won’t overwhelm your cake or cupcakes and this recipe makes enough to frost a three-tier cake AND have leftovers for white on white decorating… or get creative and add some color! Check out the tips for frosting your cake below the recipe.

Amazing Vanilla Frosting

Jackie

This is a knock-your-socks-off frosting that is not too sweet, but super light & yummy. It won't overwhelm your cake or cupcakes and this recipe makes enough to frost a three-tier cake AND have leftovers for decorating.

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 40 minutes mins

Course Desserts

Servings 6 cups

Ingredients

  

• Enough for frosting a three layer cake & a few flourishes with an icing bag & decorating tip:
• 1/2 c + 2 tbsp flour
• 2 c milk
• 2 tsp real vanilla
• 2 c unsalted butter 4 sticks at room temperature
• 2 c granulated sugar not powdered sugar
• pinch salt omit if using salted butter

Instructions

 

• Bake your favorite chocolate (or other flavor) cake and let cool.
• In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly until it thickens. You want it to be very thick -- thicker than a cake mix.
• Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. (If you're in a hurry, you can put the saucepan in a bowl with ice in the sink. It must be completely cool before you do the next step.)
• Stir in vanilla.
• While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together (on very high) until light and fluffy. You don't want any graininess left.
• Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven't beaten it enough. Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream, with stiff peaks.
  
• Frost cake. See tips below. (Look for the Favorite Mocha Cake recipe -- a perfect combo!)

Notes

This frosting needs to be refrigerated after it's been put on your cake. Because it has a lot of butter, it will harden in the fridge, so you might want to take your cake out of the fridge about 10-15 minutes before serving.

If you're going to use remaining frosting for decorating, make sure it is not too warm or it will make kind of gooey decorations.

Before frosting your cake, make sure that your cake layers are COMPLETELY cooled, and if you want the optimum working conditions, the layers should be refrigerated or even frozen before assembling your cake.

For the first layer, place the layer upside down, so that the curved top of the layer is resting in the curve of the plate. This will give you a flat surface for your first frosting layer. Use about a 1/2″ layer of icing in between the layers. To get a fairly flat cake, you may need to “saw” off the curved top of the layer so it lays more flat. The top layer should be inverted so that the flattest side will be the top of your cake.

After your layers are assembled, you’ll be putting on a “crumb” layer to ice all around the cake. It’s nearly impossible — especially with a chocolate cake and white icing — to keep crumbs out of the icing, so don’t even try. Just put as thin a layer as you can, and not worry about the crumbs in the frosting.

Now refrigerate the cake with the crumb layer for at least a couple of hours. Once cooled, the crumbs are trapped in the first layer of icing. Your cake will then be ready for the final icing layer. As you can see, minimal crumbs are visible in the icing.

Your cake is now ready to decorate as you like!