My 6yo daughter (the world's pickiest eater) doesn't like buttercream. I've tried several recipes, including the Whimsical Bakehouse's fluffy kind, to no avail. She doesn't eat chocolate (we question her parentage frequently). Does anyone know of a recipe that is similar to the kind of vanilla frosting that comes in a tub? I don't know why it's so important to me to find scratch frosting that she'll eat, but that's motherhood for you, I guess. Thanks all!

LOL...you are to funny. I get obsessed over little things, flavors, icings, etc just like you. There has to be a way! lol

Firstly, the stuff in the tub is sort of a buttercream, so I hope we are talking about the same regular grocery Betty Crocker-type tubs of icing. Those contain ingredients that we usually don't want in our frosting, lol, or can't produce in the home kitchen, mostly hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids.

These types of icings are hard to mimic in taste. What I would do is try and find out what about them she likes or dislikes in your buttercreams. Usually it is the butter/shortening mixed with gritty sugar that throws people off, ie the texture just is not the same.

The only thing I would suggest is just keep comparing buttercreams, there are a million different varieties. One buttercream in particular that I like because the creamy texture is different are the cream cheese types, usually calling for 8oz of cream cheese. You can make some fantastic buttercreams that I think come pretty close to the tub kind, except that you won't grow a third arm or blow up like Violet in Willy Wonka. lol.

Good luck.

If she does not like chocolate it is prob. the sugar, buttercream is normally very sweet and I hate to say it but I kind of don't prefer it. I do use the buttercream dream recipe on this site and everyone seems to love it at work. The cream cheese is a good idea since I just made one and it helped tone down the sugar, than I added white chocolate so there went that

I found this recipe on the web. It's supposed to taste like the Pillsbury canned frosting. I've never tried it, so I couldn't tell you for sure - it kinda looks like a BC icing to me.....

Pillsbury frosting clone

2 lbs. Powdered sugar(confectioner's icing sugar)
1/4 cup Coffee Mate (powdered nondairy coffee creamer)
Dash of salt
1 1/3 cup Crisco shortening (solid vegetable shortening)
2/3 cup water
1 Tbsp.vanilla extract
1/4 tsp.butter flavoring

Mix by hand until fine, then mix in mixer on low. Add water, vanilla, butter flavor and mix well. Then mix on medium until creamy.

You can substitue 1/2 of the crisco with butter but you won't get a white icing, you'll get an off-white or ivory color. Also using the crisco, the frosting will be firmer and won't welt or weep like it could with using butter.

For Chocolate add a bit of cocoa powder.

I ran into the challenge too. My better half would only eat the stuff from a can and I REALLY didn't want to use it so I kept trying until I found something she would eat.

What I found made the biggest difference was using high ratio shortening instead of Crisco. Also using the correct flavorings. I use butter, vanilla and almond. I think it's the butter flavor that helps it the most because it makes it less sweet.

I just make a basic buttercream with all shortening and no butter with water. I think it tastes great and my better half will actually eat it. (Although there is no frosting in the world she actually LIKES like. Just tolerates.)

pinkopossum, that recipe looks interesting. It probably mimics more in flavor I would guess because it is very similar to a typical sugary type buttercream.

One thing I would do is replace that Crisco with hi-ratio shortening. I would give you more of a whipped feel as hi-ratio has emulsifiers in it and it does not leave a greasy feel on your tongue like regular shortening.

Thanks for posting.

I just noticed that my icing taste just like the caned stuff. so I think if you add about half a bag of white chocolate with about 3 tbsp of cream (to melt the chocolate in) to the Buttercream Dream recipe on this site you might pull it off. I had wipped cream cheese in mine and it was really good and smoth. I think it just had to sit a day and it worked out. I did not use the butter extract.

What is considered hi-ratio shortening ?

Molly2

I agree up till this all I knew about was crisco to add on to that question what is a good brand name to look for?

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll try them soon. I wound up making a white chocolate ganache from candy melts and covering a "leftover" yellow cake with it for my daughter. She loved the ganache, which was WAY too sweet for me, but . . .wait for it . . . hated the cake!!!! And it's my standard yellow cake that she eats all the time!!! (To be fair, it had been in and out of the freezer a couple times and didn't taste quite up to par.) Ah, well. The rest of us enjoyed a lovely chocolate espresso cake with espresso butter filling, covered with espresso ganache. Mmmmm.

You know if you mix the white chocolate melts or dark chocolate candy melts with fondant, you get what is close to choco-pan, which is a commercial product that is tastier than traditional fondant. Just a tip.

That all sounds so yummy. I am a big coffee-flavored freak, especially with chocolate.

Regarding your yellow cake, maybe you over-baked it? The freezer might have played a hand in it. My favorite light (wedding cake variety) yellow cake is Cook's Illustrated yellow layer cake and I have heard that the Whimsical Bakehouse has a good one as well. You can probably find these on the internet if you look hard enough.

Thanks for the tip about combining candy melts with fondant - I'd never have thought about it! Thanks also for the tip about the Cook's Illustrated yellow layer cake. I actually have that cookbook out of the library now & am planning on trying it. Maybe right now, even . . . I'm usually very happy with my standard yellow cake and I'm sure the problem was thawing & refreezing.

No problem at all, glad I could help.

If the book you checked out is Baking Illustrated from Cook's Illustrated, a great book btw, there are several typos in that book unfortunately. Their yellow cake should read 2 1/4 cups of plain cake flour, not 1 3/4 cups.

Wow, so much helpful info! Thanks Rodneyck! I want to try this Apline/sweetex. In case I can't find you when I get it, do you use the same measured amount that you do with crisco?
My only little tip to all your wonderful ideas is I add a tsp or two of meringue powder to my BC, seems to sut some of the sweet and make it a little more light and fuffy.
BTW, which one do you use, Alpine or sweetex? Have you tried them both?

Thanks for the tip. Meringue Powder addition is great and it is a must for piping work especially, gives it that fluffy, smooth texture. You can also add a pinch of salt to your icing; this tends to trick the palate in thinking it is less sweet.

I purchase mine from countrykitchensa.com and a local cake decorating supplier. They both repackage and put their own label on it, so I am not for sure what the actual brand is, but I like them equally as much.

I have not tried Alpine or Sweetex, at least I think, lol. I got that information from a forum where they were discussing the two and which was best, and what they preferred. These two were the top choices.

You use the hi-ratio just like shortening. You can even use it for deep frying according to my instructor, but it would be a costly meal, lol.


Take care..

Rodneyck, what would we do without you! Thanks so much for pointing out that typo - I may make that cake today & it surely would have flopped if it were missing 1/2 cup flour! Btw, any other recommendations from the Baking Illustrated cookbook?

No problem, glad I relayed the mistake in time, lol. If you want to catch all the mistakes, then look at the customer reviews of that book on Amazon. I posted mine and another guy posted a few more.

Well my favorite white cake is in that book as well, the white layer cake. I am going to try their Devil's Food Cake soon, which looks very promising. I have heard their biscuits are really, really good (but also a typo in the recipe, so check amazon). The coconut cake got rave reviews. I have on file to make their lemon cookies with the glaze and the black & whites.

They also had a really good technique and recipe, one I had never heard of for stabilizing whipped cream so it won't break down and "weep." It is listed under the Black Forest Cake, so make sure to copy that one. I think I also took their curd recipe, the one they used on the lemon cheesecake, I believe. It sounded full-proof. Oh, and of course, the New York Cheesecake, wow. They have a pumpkin one in there to, although it is a lot of work, but is the best. Oh, and lastly, they have a Maple nut scone recipe that sounds just like the ones at Starbucks which I loooove. I have not tried that yet, but will when I am in the mood for them.

The whole book is great; I just love their shows and recipes. I am still working my way through them.

Later...