Betty Crocker makes a fantastic gluten free cake mix, by the by.
the fun of making my own frosting is I get to use all butter and real cream. It’s fantastic. I do advocate adding a pinch of salt as well. it makes a huge difference. I also whip the heck out of it with my kitchen aid because I do like it lighter and fluffier, but that’s just a matter of your solids to liquids ratio.
I’ve tried making a European butter cream. the first time it came out fantastic, the second time it separated on me. I do wish I could get a good scaled down recipe for it. Most of the one’s I find online are sized for wedding cakes.
I know what you mean about the crap in store cakes. Whenever we go to one relative’s BD parties, the cakes are tasteless monsters.
When my kids were little, we got all our BD cakes at a hole-in-the-wall bakery that did whipped cream frostings. To DIE for.
The conveyor-belt, assembly line mega-mart-with-“bakery” frosting is probably the cheapest shortening available, which may or may not have tallow in it–that can give you the “greasy” mouthfeel. And from the airy texture, I would imagine there are stabilizers of some kind being used, and the shortening is whipped to include the maximum amount of air. A miniscule amount of sugar and flavoring would be added. They might even use HCFS.
Haven’t you noticed that ICE CREAM is no longer what it used to be? It’s AIR. It’s full of stabilizers which allow the maximum amount of air to be whipped into the ice cream base. And the low calorie bastardizations have even MORE stabilizers, so it has a gummy feel to it.
To do it right, do it yourself!
~VOW
I’m going to pull a guess out of my ass, and say that many commercial bakeries use high fructose corn syrup these days instead of cane or beet sugar, and that might be part of the problem. HFCS doesn’t taste quite the same, and I really don’t think that the texture is the same.
Lynn, although that could be a minor factor, it’s more likely the cheap sub they are using instead of butter. While HFCS does have a slight taste difference, that won’t account for the large texture differences.
My concern is: Is it properly termed “frosting” or “icing”? What’s the difference and why is the correct answer correct?
This has been an editorial conundrum for me for years. I eagerly await the Straight Dope on the terminology.
IMO they’re fairly interchangeable, but “Frosting” is most likely to be the thick stuff that goes on most layer cakes, while “Icing” is more like the glaze that goes on Bundt cakes.
But that’s just my immediate mental images.
I’m sure **Baker **can give us the industry scoop, but as far as popular usage, I was taught that frosting stays soft while icing hardens after you’ve put it on and let it sit.
As far as composition goes, the only icing I’ve ever made was confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice or confectioner’s sugar, water and flavoring. No fat, which I’m going to WAG is why it hardens as it dries.
I was taught that icing is cooked while frosting is not.
Right, but it is mostly regionalism, like “soda’ vs “pop”.
Fondant is horrible stuff. Its like pudding smeared on the cake. Never hardens and has that pudding texture. yuck!
Fondant has the texture of modeling clay, and it’s what the hotshot cake guys (such as “Ace of Cakes”) use to do the amazing details on their cakes.
It’s edible, but I certainly wouldn’t eat it!
~VOW
As far as I know frosting and icing are interchangeable terms.
The stuff I put on cookies I call “cookie icing” to differentiate it from the stuff that goes on cakes. It’s supposed to set up firm. All that’s in it is powdered sugar, flavoring, and milk. I stir it together until I have a mix that could be almost poured, then spread it thinly on the cookies with a knife and shake sprinkles onto it. You can’t wait to long for the sprinkles because the surface sets up and drys fairly quickly. The lack of a fat, like butter or shortening, is why it won’t stay soft.
OK, here’s the scoop:
There are two types of pre-made icing commercial/retail bakeries use: One is called Bettercreme. I refer to it as commercial Cool-Whip that’s not as soft. A lot of people prefer it to the buttercream because it’s airy and not as heavy-tasting. I can’t stand the stuff. Then again, I’ve never been crazy about Cool-Whip either.
The other one is, for lack of a better term, “commercial buttercream”. There’s no butter in it, of course. No Crisco either. The fat in it is definitely not trans-fat. It makes for a drier product that can break your hand if you’re trying to decorate with it. For me, there’s also something of an “off” taste, although I haven’t heard many complaints about that.
We stopped making our icing in-house about 5 or 6 years ago, I think? In the giant Hobart mixer we creamed half what I call “baker’s Crisco” (I don’t remember the brand name – it came in a 30-lb. square box and you had to heft it, cut the tin-foil like outer coating, and ooze it into the bowl) and half real butter (usually the damaged or one-stick-missing boxes in the dairy chest augmented by another hefty box that a local dairy made for commercial purposes), then pour in a 50-lb. bag of confectioners sugar. You let it paddle until you couldn’t feel any undissolved sugar when you took a bit of it and rubbed it between your fingers. One batch filled at least 4 30-lb. buckets.
It was divine. It had a great reputation. We switched to the commercial stuff when our chain changed hands. What we use now doesn’t hold a candle, but it saved my back 
Oh, why didn’t I think of that? I wanted to frost the christmas sugar cookies with something a little more adult this year, now that my siblings have stopped demanding to throw skittles and m&m’s on them. But I looked at royal icing recipes, didn’t want to use egg whites and didn’t know where I’d even begin to look for meringue powder so I gave up and used my regular butter frosting. Next time, I’ll just save myself the bother and come to you first, Baker.
Is that where this annoying trend for fondant came from? I knew it was out of control when Cricut (which already seems silly) released the Cricut Cake to make fondant cutouts after you got sick of paying $80 for a new scrapbooking font.
Oh, god. Seven Minute Icing. It is divine. It must be a pain to make–I never have–because we ONLY ever got it on our birthday cakes. Seven minute icing, with little silver balls, on home-made chocolate birthday cake. I wish I were a kid again, and my mother was still here… So much nostalgia.
Edited to add: that Heritage Recipes site looks dangerous. I’m already in a cookin’ and bakin’ mood… <<quickly bookmarks>>
They seem to be. Icing = Canadian. Frosting = American. We ice a cake. Which sounds weird now, as no ice is involved. 
In the business we refer to it as “icing”. I’ve never used, nor have I ever heard “frosting” professionally.
This is correct, speaking as a former pastry chef. Icing refers to the thinner glaze coating such as on bundt-type cakes, doughnuts, eclairs, and profiteroles. But the terms are largely interchangeable outside of a professional kitchen.