flour frosting

If you've spent much time around this blog, you might have picked up that I'm not normally a big frosting fan. I almost always halve frosting recipes and still have some left over, since I prefer it used sparingly. When Kevin and I go out to eat and order cake, I usually just taste the frosting and then eat around it. It's usually too sweet, and I don't like the greasy feeling it leaves in my mouth after eating it.

But this frosting has changed my mind. Referred to in old recipes as "boiled flour frosting," it may not sound too appetizing at first (that combination of words makes me want to gag)... but the actual product is AMAZING.

I have made both vanilla and chocolate varieties of flour frosting; the most reliable recipe I have found is located at the Obsessed with Baking blog. Warning: the blog and the recipe aren't vegan, but veganizing it is really straightforward. I swapped Earth Balance (margarine) for the butter, and soymilk for the milk. And it came out beautifully! For chocolate, I added 1/3 cup cocoa powder to the cooking phase and a little over 1/2 cup of melted chocolate chips (cooled) to the mixing phase.

So what's the difference between this frosting and normal frosting? To me, it tastes richer than normal vegan buttercream without feeling as heavy. It's also fluffier. It spreads beautifully, keeps for quite a while, and freezes well. My only suggestion is that when you thaw it from frozen, thaw it in the fridge. Thawing it on the counter on a hot day like I did can make it separate. (Oops.)

Have you ever heard of flour frosting? After I started telling my mother how excited I was to have found out about it, she told me that this is the kind of frosting her grandmother used to make! I love exploring/discovering my roots through cooking, however accidentally.