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That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had

4.28 Mitt(s) 172 Rating(s)172 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5172 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5172 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5172 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5172 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5

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Level: Easy

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Description

So perfect on a chocolate cake that you’ll never frost one with anything else, ever again.

Ingredients

  • 5 Tablespoons Flour
  • 1 cup Milk
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla
  • 1 cup Butter
  • 1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

Preparation

Bake your favorite chocolate cake and let it cool.

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

Grab a spoon and taste this wonderful goodness. If there is any left after your taste test, spread it on a cooled chocolate cake.

Cut yourself a piece and put it on a pretty plate. Grab a fork and prepare to experience the most divine pairing you can imagine. This frosting on chocolate cake is to die for. Sure, the recipe sounds strange — it has flour in it — but it’s sublime. Try it, you’ll see. You’ll love it so much you won’t go back.

Oct 2015 update: TIPS! Use only real butter!! (My personal preference is the organic salted butter from Costco as to me it has a more rich and buttery taste.) Do not use margarine, tub spreads, Country Crock, etc as the frosting is likely to separate. Some people like to use superfine sugar instead of regular granulated sugar, or to run the granulated sugar through a food processor first to make their own superfine sugar. If you taste flour or paste when it’s done, I suspect the flour/milk mixture didn’t cook long enough, don’t be in a hurry to bring the milk/flour to the thickened state, let it have time to cook that flour taste out as it thickens. Did you get lumps? whisk whisk whisk as it cooks! One person recommended using a hand mixer as it cooks to avoid lumps, Some people use 3 T of flour instead of 5. I’ve made it with soy milk, non-fat milk and all the way through to half-n-half and it’s turned out great for me using any of those. I’ve put it in piping bags and decorated with it, I’ve left it on the counter and I’ve also refrigerated it. I’m not a professional baker and while I’ve never had this recipe fail, I highly recommend reading the comments, there are great tips and helpful comments! Some have recommendations for adding cocoa powder, cherry, fresh strawberries, using coconut oil, etc. One person used lavender and earl grey tea in it (I recommended she post that recipe!) Some people have put the sugar in with the milk/flour mixture instead of creaming it with the butter. (I’ve tried that and personally wasn’t a fan as it completely changed the flavor, and texture, of the frosting in the end.) Also, while I like this best on chocolate cake, you can use it on any flavor of cake. In fact, it’s the original, very old, frosting for Red Velvet Cake. Yep, that’s right! Cream cheese frosting is not the original frosting for Red Velvet :) Happy baking! Have fun, and enjoy!! ~MissyDew

242 Comments

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Amanda Odom on 11.1.2020

Ok, this is for those of us who *almost* have all the ingredients handy, but not quite. I didn’t have any milk but I had buttermilk (odd, I know) and I only had 1/2 cup butter on hand (unsalted, at that). But I did have a little butter spread and some strawberry cream cheese. So, I used a cup of buttermilk to cook with the flour, and used an electric hand mixer to blend it while it heated. It got nice and thick quickly, and since it didn’t have to cook long, it cooled pretty quickly. With the sugar I beat in the 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup butter spread and 1/4 cup strawberry cream cheese. I added the vanilla to the flour mixture and then added the whole thing together, beating it with an electric mixer. I added a little extra salt since I had used unsalted butter and the cream cheese was pretty sweet. The whole thing came out a nice thick consistency, and it was really tasty! It did taste like cream cheese frosting due to the buttermilk and 1/4 cream cheese, so if you like that “sour-ish” taste, you might like this. We thought it was really good, with a very slight strawberry flavor. It was perfect on our “not super-sweet” chocolate cake.

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Brandi K on 7.1.2019

I was thinking about using this frosting on an ice cream layer cake for my daughter’s birthday. Do you think it will freeze well as I would be frosting the cake and placing it back in the freezer before the actual day it will be eaten

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Erika L Hanson on 1.17.2019

If anyone was going to wreck this frosting, it would be me. I’m the queen of mess-ups because I over multi-task. But the great thing about this frosting is that it WANTS you to be doing other things and forget about it and keep beating and beating! I could not get the graininess out of the sugar/butter. I mixed it until very pale in color, and very light and fluffy. But the texture still had a bit of “crunch.” However, when I whipped in the flour mixture, the “crunch” disappeared and the frosting was truly magical. I can’t believe it worked for me.

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Gloria Liuzzo on 6.23.2018

I had to try this unusual recipe with flour in it. Baked a box cake (which I only do when I don’t have the time) and thought my sons might like this one. Well, I didn’t have any milk, but I did have dried buttermilk, so I put together a cup of that. I don’t have a taste for buttermilk, so I added some Sweetened Condense Milk to it, about 4 tbl. The first mixture came out great, put the pot in a cold bath while I mixed the butter up. Now I have a Cuisinart 7 speed hand mixer and I must have mixed for about 15 minutes to get the sugar mixed in. It was still a little gritty but it was good enough. I mixed in the first mixture and again, put it on Very High for about 10 minutes. I tasted it and I can still taste the buttermilk. I added the vanilla but then I thought I have some Cocoa and some Raspberry extract, put about 1/4 cup of Cocoa in and a teaspoon of Raspberry extract and whipped again. I have to admit I was worried but it taste like chocolate whipped cream. I got rid of the buttermilk taste. This is definately a keeper as I think all my friends and family will just love it, I know I do. I had to put the cake in the frig it’s kind of humid out tonight, but I just cut me a piece and it thickened up just fine. Absolutely delicious!!

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Leigh Armstrong on 1.1.2018

Ok so it’s definitely not the best frosting I ever tasted. Swiss meringue buttercream holds that title no problem. But! It is a good frosting. I doubled the recipe and it covered two 2 layer cakes. I made it with the Bob’s gluten free 1 for 1 flour, made my own caster sugar in the Cuisinart, and it worked perfectly. I cooled the paste in an ice bath with plastic on the surface and had none of the problems reported by some others. I have no idea how this frosting works, but it does.

171 Reviews

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Robert Hale on 7.29.2017

MissyDew, Thank you! Your preparation and instructions are EXCELLENT, understandable & in the order of the making this frosting, including possible pitfalls, prior to hitting one. First of all, I am a beginner baker, (Or I was, until I made (1) 3 layer Italian Creme Cake, *****; (2) 1 layer Double Chocolate Cake, Raspberry/chocolate panache crust/Raspberry-Dark Chocolate Butter Creme Frosting, ***; (3) 6 layer Raspberry Laced Vanilla Cake/ Raspberry Butter Creme Frosting, ****)in the last 2 weeks, so I was ready to bake my 4th cake, 3 Layer Devil’s Food, and found you & this recipe! Done deal, *****. I tweaked both (A) Duncan Hines Devil’s Food mix [for 2 -9″ pans], adding 3/4 Cup Softasilk cake flour, 1/2 tsp soda, less butter & adding coconut oil, 1/4 cup cocoa to Mix recipe AND (B) The Best Frosting You and I Have Ever had. Your Recipe’s ingredients X 1.3 because of 3 Layers, Softasilk Cake Flour, C & H Baker’s Sugar/Coconut Palm Sugar Blend, following your SPOT ON instructions, whisking,an ice cube-water sink cooling stage 20 minutes or so, vanilla after it was cool, then beating with my new 2 week old Proctor Silex $7.95 hand mixer. The frosting yield was perfect for 3 layers. My devil’s food cake and the Best Frosting I have ever Had !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Winner! *****. Thank you Dear. Could you post another recipe(s)? Until then, I appreciated this ONE.

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Amanda on 9.25.2016

This frosting was such a disappointment. I followed the directions exactly, and the frosting seemed to come together just fine. It looked just like pictures. I tasted it, and blah. It was passable, I wouldn’t refuse to eat it, but much worse than my regular buttercream. I stuck it in the fridge for two hours while I put the kids to bed and then started frosting. As it came to room temperature, it started separating on the cake and cupcakes I had frosted. I had to scrape it off, add some cream cheese and powdered sugar to fix it and refrost. What a waste of time.

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Aimee P on 9.10.2016

Great recipe. More subtle on sweetness and much creamier and fluffier than a 10x sugar buttercream.

Erin Moores – Thank you! I was beating this for maybe 20 min and started scrolling through the comments because surely I had done something wrong! But I followed her suggestion of spooning the flour, milk, vanilla mixture in and continued. No more grainy sugar!

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monica martin on 7.3.2016

I don’t think this could get any better! This was time consuming and a lot of beating…not kidding there. So very worth it though! So light and fluffy and not overly sweet which was what I was looking for. The recipes that call for powdered sugar are just too sweet! We have a couple of diabetics in my family and they CAN have sweets every so often and they really liked this much better! It was a huge hit with everyone including the kids of course. I made this to frost 4th of July cupcakes today. Great recipe and will try with cocoa powder next time. :) Thanks!

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Joy Kerns on 3.24.2016

This frosting is amazing! Just enough sweetness. I am not an experienced baker and have never made frosting before. I will definitely make this again!

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