When it comes to baking delicious desserts, attention to detail is critical. Although buying a simple box of cake mix from the store and mixing it with whatever necessary ingredients you have lying around can work well in a pinch, sometimes you may want to go above and beyond to create all the best ingredients from scratch. If you’re one of these intrepid home bakers, it pays to have a kind of recipe that you can use again and again.
Fortunately, we have a perfect one of those recipes for you today which should bring a new life to many of your different baking adventures. That’s because today we’re going to teach you how to make an absolutely perfect vanilla buttercream frosting that anyone can make at home. Although this would go great on cupcakes, you could also put it on cakes or even on cookies for another blast of sweet flavor. Once you try it, we dare you not to keep a bunch of it on-hand at virtually all times. So let’s get started.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 1 1/2 cups of softened and unsalted butter
- 4 cups of powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- seeds from one vanilla bean pod (optional)
Here’s what you do:
1. To get started, make sure you have an electric mixer with a big bowl attached. First, throw in your butter and whip it up on a medium-high speed for about eight minutes. At the end of the process, your butter should be light and creamy.
2. After that, add your two cups of powdered sugar and keep mixing it together on a low speed until everything gets incorporated. Add your vanilla, salt and vanilla bean seeds if you’re using them at this stage also. Keep mixing once again until everything combines.
3. Next, add another two cups of powdered sugar and keep mixing it on low until the rest of the sugar folds into the mix. Add your cream at this stage and keep mixing on the same speed.
4. Once that’s all in, turn the speed on the mixer up to high and keep beating everything together until the frosting turns a lighter and fluffier texture (which should take about three to five minutes). After all is said and done, be sure to lick the beaters and enjoy!
While it may be tempting to go to the store and buy a can of pre-made frosting, many of our favorite brands come with plenty of mystery ingredients and sometimes even trans fats that can hurt our bodies. As you can see, making your own frosting right at home is actually incredibly easy—and it has the added benefit of letting you know what’s actually going into your body!
Although the above recipe is not to be eaten everyday, it definitely tastes incredible on cakes, cookies and whatever else you might find yourself spreading it on. With the basic proportions we’ve outlined above, you can even start experimenting with your own versions! Above all, have fun with this process and let us know how it goes!
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