Monday, February 22, 2010

No Longer a Slave to Betty Crocker

My mom's frosting recipe goes something like this: "Take a couple tablespoons of butter, add a bunch of powdered sugar, add a tiny bit of milk, and then a little vanilla, then more milk or powdered sugar if you need it..." I've tried it a few times, but it just never works out for me.

I made cupcakes for New Beginnings this weekend, and I really needed a reliable frosting recipe. So I went to my good friend The Internet, and I totally found one.

I ended up with a whole bunch of extra frosting, so today I made a cake and started practicing for Eliza's first birthday.


I know, I know. I won't quit my day job. But it was so much easier than I expected. It reminded me of my teenaged cookie-decorating days working at Mrs. Field's, which reminded me of the giant buckets of frosting we kept in the back room, which made me wonder whether anybody ever got sick after eating a cookie that had been decorated with year-old, stored-at-room-temperature frosting.

And that reminded me of the conversation Ben and I had recently, where we compared his first job at Subway with my first job at Mrs. Field's. Both of us loved washing dishes because the faucet had a sprayer with super high water pressure, but neither of us remember ever using soap.

4 comments:

The Mathews Family said...

Nice job on the cake, I hope you use soap now. I still won't eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken (my first job) because we had buttermilk biscuit dough fights prior to baking them...yuck...

bex said...

i think we just rubbed everything down with butter at mrs fields. no soap needed.

also, i think i used to get sick by eating handfuls of macadamia nuts in the back when nobody was looking.

Celeste said...

ok, good job on the cake & all & I'm glad you're branching out from canned & butter + powdered sugar frosting, but I think I'd better share my buttercream recipe. Tell your little friend Wilton that anything that involves shortening should not been taken internally.
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
bring that to a boil over medium heat, let boil for 5 minutes. In the meantime crack 7 large eggs & put the whites in your mixer bowl. When 5 minutes is up, start whipping the egg whites into a meringue for 2 minutes. When that's up, pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites slowly, while the mixer is still doing it's thing. Let it keep mixing until its under but around 100 degrees. Then cut 6 sticks of unsalted butter into it as it mixes. Let that go for while until it becomes silky & amazing, then add 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Then eat it & die because you've never known how good true buttercream can be. Yay you!
Sorry to sound like a total snob, but when it comes to cakes & the like, that's what I am. I love your blog.

kathryn said...

mrs. fields... and tan pants. great memories there. i loved that i always got stuck working with the female crypt keeper. and it's true, i don't remember using soap at mrs. fields either. maybe that's why i can't bring myself to eat cookies from that place? or maybe i got burnt out from stuffing nibblers in my mouth whenever they came out of the oven. hmmm.

and your cake is gorgeous... eliza is going to have such a fabulous 1st birthday.

p.s. remember when people would order cakies for their wedding cakes?