February through April (and soon to be May) are birthday months for us. So I’m always baking cakes. I am continually trying to make them healthier and experiment each time. My birthday is next week, so I’m using my cake as another experiment for both recipes and decorating practice for Rebecca’s cake. Yesterday I finally got around to trying homemade frosting (usually between the cake baking and decorating I’m just too strapped for time to worry about frosting). Every time I use the boughten stuff I cringe because of the hydrogenated oil. And even though we rarely eat it, I still don’t like it. So now that I’ve been working with palm shortening for a while I wanted to try using that for frosting. I did a search for recipes. Most of them are very similar. This is what ingredients/ratios I decided on. The verdict…AWESOME!!! I admit, I love frosting 🙂  I don’t really care about the cake…I just like the frosting. And I am picky when it comes to frosting. I know I’m crazy, but I like the thick, sweet stuff. I don’t care for the light/fluffy stuff at all. So I wasn’t sure what to expect. But this turned out great. Rebecca loved it too…and didn’t mind at all licking the spoon afterwards 🙂  I crumb coated my cake with it this morning. So far so good.

I have to admit that I still used regular powdered sugar for this attempt. I had some on hand to use up. And I’m still experimenting. Next time I’ll try the organic stuff. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive! Even with the processed sugar I feel much better about using this frosting than something out of a jar.

Hopefully with a little more experimenting on Justin’s cake, by the time I get to Rebecca’s cake/party I’ll have a pretty healthy and good looking treat 🙂

I’m mostly posting this recipe so I don’t forget it 🙂  Can’t wait to try the cake tomorrow.

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup organic palm shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and shortening until fluffy (I used my stand mixer to make this…I’m sure a hand mixer would work fine). Add powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp. milk and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Add more milk if too stiff. If it gets too thin add extra sugar. Use right away or store in the refrigerator. Let come to room temp (for a couple hours) before using if it has been refrigerated.