With instant coffee, latte, noodles and various other frozen foods in the market just waiting to be micro waved before being eaten, it requires real passion to make things from a scratch. But once you have had pure home-made food you understand the difference.
So, say you volunteered to make little heavenly cupcakes for your niece’s birthday party and when it came to frosting you involuntarily went for the store-bought one. It didn’t taste so good, did it? But hey, we have a dupe for everything these days! Let me tell you how to make store-bought frosting better.
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What is Wrong With The Store-Bought Food Recipes?
I don’t know what is wrong with these store-bought stuff; the measurements they tell you is always less than what is required and so if you (like a little good girl) are following the instructions to the T, you get what you deserve for being too rigid: inedible food.
The trick to making any store-bought food taste home-made is to add more ingredients than what they recommend or if it is a ready-made food like frosting, add more ingredients into the ready-made one anyway. You will see how Cathy agrees with me here.
Related article:Best Whipped Cream Dispensers
What is The Deal With Store Bought Frosting?
Now the reason why store-bought frosting taste yuck is either because it is too sweet or too hard to spread or pipe or sometimes if you are lucky enough (read unlucky) it is both. In most cases these store-bought frosting are labeled cream-cheese, in case they are not, you can be sure that it is butter cream (what butter cream tastes like that, anyway?).
But in order to start with making your own frosting you need to get a tub. My opinion would be, get one in the flavor you want and judge the rest by the color of the tub. (Kidding, not kidding).
The ingredients and utensils to make store-bought frosting better:
Ok, so let us get down to the actual business and get you all the things you need. You would want:
- A mixing bowl
- Electric mixer
- Hand mixer
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Powdered sugar
- Food coloring (optional)
- Water
- Bowl
- Spoon
- Crème cheese
- Flavored extracts (optional)
Improve The Taste
There are a few flavor combinations you can choose from.
1) Crème cheese and butter cream: A tub of butter cream frosting and 8oz of crème cheese should do the work. Mix them together. Then add any flavored extract (if you want that is). Vanilla works well this taste profile.
2) Whipped cream butter cream: Mix equal proportions of whipped cream and store-bought frosting. If you are going for extracts, you can do a little experiment here: choose something wintery like rum, maple or maybe chocolate and hazelnut. Strawberry frosting and cotton candy extracts also work wonders, especially if you are making it for children, birthday party and stuff.
Enhance The Consistency
- The first thing that you need to do is take the frosting out of the freezer and bring it down to room temperature.
- Once it gets soft enough to be stirred, empty the whole content in a large bowl. Make sure the bowl has enough space so that you can stir the frosting fast without spilling.
- Now, add the powdered sugar, about a teaspoon and mix with any of the mixers that seems inviting to you (just trying to seem funny!).
- After you have mixed these ingredients well put in the spatula in the mixture and see if it stands by itself. If it is doing that then you should be happy with the consistency but also make sure that the frosting is not too thick, the mixer should not overheat.
In case, it gets too thick, add a little water. It is always better to leave a little air on the frosting to get that fluffy creaminess. Check this video out:
Add Color To Get Rid Of Dullness
This is optional but I prefer colors in my frosting; everything doesn’t need to be black and/or white! Take the mixture out in a bowl if you had been using a stand mixer and smoothen the consistency. Add one drop of color each time and stir it till you get the right color. Here’s some help:
You can also add macadamia nuts, pine nuts or an assortment of all kinds of them, chocolate chips or even coconuts to add an extra texture to the frosting. Peanut butter is a good choice too. And I had once tried Nutella, yum!
Some Brownie Points
- Whipping the frosting in an electric mixer will double up the size of the frosting and also make it fluffier. Hands work fine of course but if you can have an electric mixer, use it: machines are there to make your life easier.
- You can also make pop dips with these store-bought frosting: put in an uncovered bowl of frosting in the microwave (read more: best microwave-toaster combo oven) at half power and let it fully melt. Once it becomes all liquid, dip your pop-tarts or cake-pops and let them dry.
Final Words
So, this was my attempt to help you with frosting and I hope you are not as clueless about turning store-bought frosting into edible ones anymore.
Cooking is mostly about passion and a little about techniques. I have jotted down the techniques here for you but when you are actually making this frosting, follow your heart (but don’t go haywire). You don’t need to follow the measurements to the T, they are there to give you an idea.
At the end of the day, when it comes to food we should always trust our own taste buds.