Butter Cream Icing

Today I decided I had a craving for butter cream icing... I quickly decided that it would not be a good idea to simply make and eat icing so I baked a cake. It makes me smile to think that the sole purpose of this cake's existence is to give me an excuse to make icing =] but thats not entirely true. The other day when I was at Hobby Lobby I couldn't resist this little 6" round cake pan, its adorable and I wanted to make a layer cake with it so I did. The recipe I used for butter cream is >HERE< and I should go ahead and note that I used a 1/4 recipe because I'm only making one cake... and its really just for me and I really don't need all the extra sugar sitting around, actually I'm going to see if maybe I can pawn this cake off on the church people tomorrow. I made three layers but only used two for my actual cake, the third I kinda ate..

Here is how it turned out:

Yummy, right! Basically, yeah. Ok so I want to go ahead and say please don't make fun of me, I make yummy things not necessarily pretty things, I'm not a cake decorator, I'm a cake eater, aesthetics are not my main concern, taste is. 

To start with you will need:

These things. Food coloring is optional, personally I think I can taste it and I'm not fond of it but I'm using it for the sake of the prettiness of this blog. 

Put the shortening in the mixer first and beat it up real good, then add 2 C powdered sugar

Add the vanilla- I used roughly a teaspoon but it could've used a little more, also you can use almond or coconut or really any flavor you like here. Add 1.5 oz heavy whipping cream, I had to add a couple more tablespoons to get it to the texture I wanted.

Now add the food coloring I wanted a purple cake, just because. So I used equal parts blue and red and made a pretty lavender color.

I think my camera may actually be color blind because its much prettier than this in real life. Think of an Easter-y lavender. 

I iced the bottom layer first then stacked on the second layer

Then iced it as well, no, it isn't lopsided the frosting is just uneven but I really like the spackle-y look of it.

I added some frills to it, took this picture then scraped the frills off and slapped them onto the third layer made from excess batter that didn't get added to the pretty cake

Its really not attractive and I'm sorry for showing it to you but this is todays lunch/dinner. Sorry health conscious people but it had to be sacrificed to the kitchen gods, it was simply too ugly to be allowed to survive, that and I'm on my own for meals today so I have no one to appear healthy for. But, since this is supposed to be about the icing - it is very good and I really like it. I hope you try it, like it and use it for future cakes. 

Happy Baking!

Enjoy! =]