So I always thought that making frosting was a fairly easy thing to do. That store-bought stuff works okay, but after baking cupcakes it tends to feel wrong just throwing on something I purchased. I want to put my heart and soul into this stuff.

The problem was, frosting had never worked out for me before. The ingredients intimidated me. Crisco? Isn’t that, like, condensed animal fat? Peeled from the carcasses of cute barnyard animals? (Turns out vegetable Crisco tends to be the best to use).

After forging through the AP Bio test last Monday, I decided it was time to take on homemade frosting without ending up with soupy powdered sugar. Post baking glorious butter yellow cupcakes, I used:

–          2 Tablespoons low fat milk

–          4 cups confectioner’s sugar (aka powdered sugar)

–          ½ cup shortening (Crisco)

–          ½ cup butter

–          1 tablespoon vanilla

–          A few squeezes of lemon

Tips: Mix this a lot. I recommend an electric mixer or kitchen aid because the shortening and butter need to get really fluffy. Also, the lemon. This wasn’t in any of the recipes I checked out. After 4 cups of sugar, though, to get a good consistency, the frosting was way too sweet. Adding some lemon sort of neutralized that taste.

This frosting turned out to be a great consistency and was really tasty. Mix together the butter and shortening first, and then add the sugar, making sure to mix really well. Finally, add the vanilla and the milk, and if it is too sweet for you like it was for me add some lemon juice.

Enjoy