I may have to try this one! The pure white color would lend itself to tinting very nicely and you could try different extracts too. I wonder how it’d do with mint extract (or orange) on a chocolate cake. Do you use cream of tartar or corn syrup (seems like they’d have dramatically different effects!)?
I’ve always used cream of tartar. Corn syrup and I don’t get along. Whenever I try to pour out a measured amount the entire contents sense that I’ve taken the lid off the bottle and make a panicked break for freedom, resulting in stickiness everywhere.
It’s really good frosting for cookie sandwiches, too; it “dries” into a kind of sturdy fluffiness. Like whipped divinity.
I came in to mention the seven minute frosting as well. It takes flavourings well, and is delicious (and no fat). It’s fluffy and billowy on a birthday cake - I usually make a snowman cake for my winter-born daughter.
Maybe something’s wrong with me or my taste buds, because I like the canned frosting. A lot.
But I’m willing to be re-educated, so I’ll try making one of these recipes next time I’m making a cake - most of them seem simple enough. What do they taste like? Are they very sweet, are they thick? I don’t like the frosting on most bakery cakes (although I’ll admit we never get cakes from the fancy bakeries), but I don’t know if that’s “buttercream”.
Oh, and you mentioned a “better than sex” cake… where can one find a recipe for such a thing?
I think the grocery-store bakery cakes are like buttercream, but the one near me proudly calls theirs “Bettercreme” or something like that. Admittedly it’s pretty stable stuff. The wikipedia article on the topic of buttercream is actually pretty interesting: Buttercream - Wikipedia - there are varieties I’d never heard of!
Any buttercream is pretty sweet stuff - hard to avoid it when the major ingredient is a pound of confectioner’s sugar.
“Better than Sex Cake” - you can google and get lots of variations. The one I use is:
1 box Duncan Hines (any brand, really) yellow cake mix.
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1 8-ounce container sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 square (never knew what that meant, I toss in one whole bar) German chocolate (the Baker’s German Sweet stuff in the baking-goods aisle)
1 six-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Preheat oven to 325. Prepare bundt cake pan or 9x13 cake pan.
Melt chocolate chips and chocolate bar in double boiler or microwave. Mix all ingredients in the the order listed. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Lower heat to 300, then bake 55-60 minutes. Cool cake.
Glaze:
Melt one square (one ounce) unsweetened chocolate and one tablespoon butter. Add 2 tablespoons boiling water and one cup sifted confectioner’s sugar. Drizzle over cake.
This results in a very moist, rich, chocolate cake. Maybe a bit of a misnomer, but I’ve probably made this more than any other single cake variety, so clearly it’s good stuff 