Miracle Frosting is nothing short of a miracle! This frosting is far from your average buttercream with a creamy texture and mild sweetness, it’s the perfect companion to any cake.
This mysterious frosting goes by many names — $300 frosting, ermine icing, boiled milk frosting, or flour frosting — but Miracle Frosting is its catchiest title. Earliest references to this frosting date back to a cookbook in 1886. Here the Miracle Frosting was paired with a mahogany cake (which looks like a predecessor to red velvet cake).
There are many recipes out there for this type of frosting, but many lead to disaster. Up until this recipe, I had trauma pertaining to Miracle Frosting. In the past, I ended up with a lumpy, separated mess, with a saccharine, gritty texture. Not here! This frosting uses a few tricks to make the smoothest and creamiest version of Miracle Frosting around.
Looking at the ingredients, it almost looks like you’re making a pudding, and in some sense, you are. Start by cooking the flour and sugar with milk and cornstarch. Many recipes call for cooking only milk and flour, but in this recipe, sugar is also cooked in the saucepan. Why? Stirring the sugar with the flour and milk dissolves the sugar granules, creating a smooth, grit-free texture.
Below
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 3/4 cups whole milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into small pieces
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, room temperature and cut into small pieces
PREPARATION
- In a bowl whisk sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt, slowly whisk in milk. Strain mixture through a strainer and into a medium-sized saucepan set over medium heat. Whisk continuously until the mixture thickens, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Transfer to a bowl, cover in plastic wrap, and let it cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.
- With a mixer whip the milk mixture until softened up, about 30 seconds. Remove half of the whipped milk-mixture and gradually add in the butter and shortening a few pieces at a time.
- Once butter and shortening are all added, add the removed milk-mixture back into the bowl and continue to whip the frosting for another 5 minutes. Use immediately to decorate and enjoy!