Buttercream Dreams

I love buttercream. I am not talking the nasty grocery store greasy leaves an aftertaste on your palette kind of buttercream. I am talking about good old homemade buttercream. Let me also state, I also don't love Italian Buttercream made from 100% butter. Mind you I like butter but I don't go to my refrigerator pull out a stick and take a bite either. Yuck. In my experimental stages of finding my favorite buttercream I made Italian buttercream with all butter. I could not wait to frost my cake and show off my skills. Actually I could not wait for the mixer to stop so I could dig in my spoon and take a bite. Oh gads, I had to spit it out. I thought I made a mistake. Especially after the first time I made the pure shortening buttercream and had to spit that out. So it was back to the drawing board of my buttercream dreams. Back to baking books and internet professional cake baking groups who share recipes of their favorite buttercream recipes. Batch after batch of buttercream. Yes this was a job I was up for and I had a refrigerator full of buckets of buttercream. I ended up finding a few buttercream recipes I really liked. These recipes have graced hundreds if not thousands of wedding cakes and birthday cakes on a daily basis. I wanted to find a buttercream that not only I would like, but that others would like as well. Yes I am admitting that the world does not revolve around my buttercream needs. I choose this recipe since it does not have to be cooked on the stove with a thermometer and constant watching. This buttercream recipe is not for the pure of heart (and I doubt Martha would approve) but if you don't have that kind of time here is a pretty good frosting:

"White Chocolate Buttercream"

2 cups crisco

1 cup butter (melted in micro)

2 pounds powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 oz. melted & cooled white chocolate (cocoa butter based)

Cream the crisco, then blend in the butter until smooth.

Sift the sugar and add all at once, mixing at low speed and constantly scraping the bowl.  The buttercream looks dry at first but comes together to make a smooth icing. If the icing is still feels to stiff, add 1-2 tablespoons of BOILING water. Mix in pure vanilla extract, then add the white chocolate.

You can also add 3-4 oz of melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate for a dark chocolate version. Feeling frisky? Add 2 tablespoons of Kahlua! Yum.

You can use the white chocolate chips at Wal-Mart under the "Sams Choice" label. These are cocoa based rather than palm kernal and works well.

There you go.