I think Duncan Hines’ Butter Recipe Golden cake mix and homemade frosting is the ultimate homemade cake:
Mmm Mmm.
Chocolate Frosting
3/4 stick butter
1 pound confectionary sugar
1 tsp vanilla
5 T cocoa powder
6 T milk
Smart-ass! That’s exactly right, at least for the pre-made canned frosting. One of the major brands (Duncan Hines*) still uses mostly sugar, but the other two (Pillsbury, Betty Crocker) have gone to mostly high fructose corn syrup. With the high-fructose corn syrup, the frosting is goopy, and gets worse as it absorbs water from the air (this may depend on the current humidity. For us, summers are humid and winters are dry, but all our birthdays are late spring through early fall.)
The OP could do a test, making two cakes and using two brands of frosting, to verify that it’s the corn syrup.
- I’m fairly certain, but check the ingredients. Is the first ingredient sugar? That’s the one to buy.
Hmmm… that might explain why store bought cakes tend to give me indigestion lately. I thought it was just another of the wonderful surprises of advancing age.
I have no knowledge of this bettercream, but it seems extremely unlikely that it would contain olestra.
I can’t be bothered to compare it to the other types of icing but Birthday Party Bettercreme is made with sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Oh, look, it’s Bettercreme! I know that label! Never heard of Birthday Party flavor, though.
And it doesn’t surprise me at all that HFCS is one of the ingredients. Probably the same thing with regular Bettercreme too.
I was joking when I mentioned Crisco as one of the components of greasy frosting. But turns out its actually the main ingredient? I just can’t imagine mixing a dollop of Crisco with sugar and NOT ending up with some greasy paste-like substance. And that quaint old bakery always seemed so stuffy, with so many cakes sitting around… How did they not go all sloppy without sitting in coolers?
I’ve stumbled upon something called “high ratio shortening” over on allrecipies-dot-com. Is this the mysterious special shortening that a few of you are referring to?
“Bettercreme”:
TROUBLESHOOTING: - IF PRODUCT APPEARS WET, SHINY OR SLIDES OFF THE CAKE, PRODUCT WAS NOT THAWED COMPLETELY (CHECK PRODUCT TEMPERATURE). - IF PRODUCT APPEARS COARSE, STIFF OR AIRY, THE PRODUCT WAS EITHER LEFT OUT OF THE REFRIGERATOR TOO LONG; WAS UNNECESSARILY STIRRED; OR EXCEEDED REFRIGERATED SHELF LIFE.
BLEAH! Perusing the ingredient list, there are a LOT of stabilizers and preservatives, and all this info just reinforces my opinion there is a helluva lot of air whipped into this crap. More air=lower cost=more money.
Barf bags, anyone?
~VOW
Yay, a thread full of people who are knowledgeable about frosting! I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not very familiar with frosting products, so I don’t have names to go with these descriptions. The most popular cake frosting in this area is a gooshy, almost liquid substance with a slimy/gooey texture and a disgustingly sweet taste. My favorite frosting has a very firm texture, but is much less dense feeling than the gooey stuff. When used on cake, it’s often left unflavored, which is fine since it adds just enough sweetness. This frosting is also the most common cupcake frosting; I often see cupcakes with a stack of the frosting as tall as the cupcake itself.
Crisco frosting and butter frosting are both going to be greasy, the difference being butter melts at a lower temperature, in your mouth, and shortening doesn’t. Bakeries use shortening because it does hold up at room temperature, it’s a lot cheaper than butter, it has a very long shelf life (as will the frosting made from it), and it’s white. You can’t get white frosting with butter - it’s going to be off-white or yellowish depending on how much is used. Bakeries also have other similar frosting ingredients options, such as butter-flavored shortening, and margarine which has been designed for frosting making (as opposed to margarine designed for layering in Danish and other flaky pastries).
Something funny: when I was a kid, my mom had an old can of Crisco which fascinated me. She didn’t ever use it for anything, so I had no idea what it was for. Mysteriously, on the label was the slogan, proclaiming “IT’S DIGESTIBLE!” - always a plus in a food product. What marketing genius thought that needed to be announced? Was that the best thing they could think of to say about it?
That’s exactly it. I said “Crisco” because, basically, that’s the professional bakery’s version of it for the reasons needscoffee described.
When we added real butter to our in-house icing I’d described upthread, it turned the icing a very, very pale ivory. When we switched to the commercial buttercreme icing, the color difference was a bit alarming.
I’m now wondering if what I remember from my childhood was cream cheese frosting. But it wasn’t particularly cream cheesey-tasting, and it seems like CC frosting would as thick as wet portland cement rather than fluffy. That wouldn’t have any sort of greasy mouth feel.
I have heard there is a shortening that bakeries use that isn’t sold in local supermarkets - and that it contributes to the bakery smell you get when you walk in a real bakery. That smell can stop me in my tracks with its deliciousness! There are no bakeries in the small town in which I now live. We had bakery called Country Maid in my hometown which has now closed, and boy do I miss it!
Anyhow, if there is such a shortening, how is it different?
The only thing that could be is shortening with a buttery flavor and color, similar to butter-flavored Crisco. When it bakes it has sort of a buttery smell. Otherwise, shortening is flavorless. Bakeries use a lot of cheap margarine in baking, and that of course has a buttery smell to it too. Either one of them could what you are smelling.
Butter is so expensive that it’s rare to find it used in any but the most high-end pastry shops.
Crisco? Is that a spinoff of Ronco? I just knew those eternally chewy cookies were too good to be true, had to be a gimmick.
I don’t like canned frosting either; it’s heavy, sticky, and gummy. And don’t get me started about “Bettercreme!” It tastes like a mixture of marshmallow fluff and warm Cool Whip.
When I was a kid, my grandmother used to use Jiffy frosting mix; one box for a small cake (like Jiffy’s own,) two for a large or layer cake. All she did was mix the powder with what seemed like not enough boiling water, but it always came out smooth and creamy. Tasted wonderful too, either vanilla or chocolate.
Until recently, it wasn’t hard to find, but has completely disappeared from stores in my area. Walmart (ergh) and the dollar store chains don’t carry it either. It’s still made by a company in Michigan, but the only way they will sell it to you directly is by the case of 24 boxes, plus $20 or more for UPS. Who needs 24 boxes of frosting mix?
I know this is a zombie thread but…
one of the worst jobs I ever had was in a grocery store. I worked in the bakery/deli section. (I lasted two days.) Frosting was made from a huge white tub of shortening add sugar plus food coloring. That’s it.
Jiffy is better than canned frosting but nothing like what used to be mixed in a double boiler at home. The really good ones were thin and called sauce.
Zombie or no, we made an Italian Meringue Buttercream in my Science of Food Prep lab a few weeks ago that was divine, and scaled for a dozen cupcakes.
Italian Meringue Buttercream (makes about 2 cups)
75 ml egg whites (1/3 cup or about 3)
150g granulated sugar
75 ml water (1/3 cup)
225g butter at room temp (2 sticks, more or less)
Combine the sugar and water in a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat on medium high. Meanwhile, put the whites in the bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment and start to whip at speed 2. You need to watch the sugar syrup at the same time; you will be timing them together at a precise point. When the sugar syrup starts to boil, turn the mixer speed to 4. When the syrup reaches 220 F, turn the mixer up to the highest speed. When the sugar reaches 242 F remove from heat and carefully pour the HOT syrup into the egg whites as they are whipping. You can turn the mixer speed down to 6 to avoid splashing. Pour the syrup down the sides of the bowl and not into the whisk. Once all the syrup has been poured in, turn the mixer back to high and whip until the mixer bowl is cool to the touch. Meringue should look stiff and shiny and form stiff peaks. With mixer at highest speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time allowing buttercream to mix thoroughly between additions. Stop and scrape the sides periodically. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.
Refrigerate leftover cupcakes, but let come to room temp before serving.
I bought a can of ‘cream cheese frosting’ to put on a cake, due to lack of time, and it tasted disgusting. Oddly enough, after the cake was put in the refrigerator, it it drastically improved.