Salted Vanilla Whipped Cream Frosting

For me, a cake is all about the frosting. You could give me cement and I swear down I would eat it if you covered it in something that contained the main components of butter and sugar. When I decided I was making a cake for Ruby (who blogs at an invisible princess) as a congratulations on your job and university place, for some reason I was completely set on whipped cream frosting. This isn't exactly what I was looking for, I guess I was more expecting some sort of heavy cream concoction, but this ended up working really well and the salted butter bring out the delicate sweetness of the vanilla and it ends up really, really light and pretty.

The original recipe was from pinterest and I'll admit, when I first saw it involved pan and heating and cooling and a lot of mixing, I was almost put off. This certainly isn't a frosting for the time conscious, but it's so worth putting the extra effort into. This recipe is enough frosting to cover a cake split once and twelve cupcakes with a little leftover, or that's what I managed anyhow. Also, I know granulated sugar seems all wrong to make a frosting out of, but you honestly wouldn't know it wasn't standard icing sugar, it's not gritty in the slightest.

First, add 7 tbsps of flour and a cup and a half of whole milk to a pan. Heat on a medium heat until thick and gloopy (almost to the point of being porridge like) which will take a few minutes - make sure you whisk constantly and really get to the edges of the pan or it will burn - then take off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature. Whilst it's cooling, cream a cup and a half of granulated sugar and a cup and a half of salted butter together until light and creamy. I was dubious about using the salted butter I use on toast and other savoury goodies, mainly because it had massive chunks of sea salt in, so I used about half standard salted and half sea salted, but I almost wish I'd used all sea salted as getting a chunk of salt in amongst the sweet was actually really pleasant - just something you might want to bear in mind. When the flour and milk mixture is cooled add 1.5 tbsp of vanilla extract, then add the mix to the creamed butter and sugar and beat it all until it resembles whipped cream and is smooth and airy.

Voile, perfect fluffy not-quite buttercream with a salty hint. I used it to fill and frost Ruby's cake, adding jam to the centre of the cake and decorating with strawberries and shaved chocolate. The cake, in case you're wondering is a Lily Vanilli Pillow Soft Vanilla Sponge. I didn't bother to photograph it as it was my first time making it and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but it was absolutely lush so no doubt I'll blog about it whenever I get the opportunity to make one again.

What do you think of whipped cream frosting? Have you got any recipe suggestions?

S xo.