Flour Frosting V2 and Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake

Cleaner, smoother and quicker! After getting a suggestion from Kate, who commented in my other post to replace flour for cornstarch, I decided to give it a try. As soon as I had the excuse to bake cupcakes, I immediately knew that this would be the frosting to make along with Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake. I've been dying to make these two things for the longest time and finally use my 1M tip!! I don't know what it is about the swirl, but everytime I see it on a cupcake, it just makes me smile.

Flour frosting V2 definitely tastes better. I think it partly has to do with cornstarch itself and partly because the milk/sugar/starch mixture is heated for less time so the milk flavour is less concentrated. Thickening with cornstarch is a bit different than flour though and you can't just dump it in and stir like crazy.

Here are some tips I found on google for thickening with cornstarch
* Make a slurry - dissolve 1 tbsp of cornstarch in 2 tbsp of cold liquid (water or in this case, milk) to prevent lumps
* Add slurry to the heated mixture you want to thicken
* Do not stir too vigorously or the starch granules will break and lose its thickening power
* Don't let the starch mixture come to a rolling boil or cook too long
* Don't lick the spoon you are stirring with or the enzymes in your saliva might break down the starch
* Acidic foods might weaken the thickening
* Too much sugar might weaken the thickening

As for the cake, my favourite chocolate cake recipe is still the old fashioned chocolate cake from Cook's Illustrated. There are a few more steps and messy bowls, but there's something about butter and possibly the method they use that I think really makes the difference in texture. Hershey's is good in that it's insanely moist and generally a crowd favourite because of that. It will probably be my go-to for a quick and easy chocolate cake when I'm short on time. I'll probably add some melted chocolate next time for greater depth in flavour because this cake was just a tiny bit flat for me. I think it has more to do with the cocoa I used because it wasn't the best quality, but it was the only natural cocoa I could find.

Flour Frosting V2

1 cup milk, divided into 3/4 cup and 1/4 cup
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup butter, cut into tablespoon sized chunks at room temperature, but not too soft

Heat 3/4 cup milk, 1 cup sugar and a pinch of salt in a pot over medium heat until sugar is dissolved but do not let it come to a boil.

Make a slurry with the starch and remaining 1/4 cup milk. Stir to get rid of lumps

Pour starch slurry into milk and sugar mixture and continue heating over medium heat. Stir , but not vigorously or else the starch mixture might liquify. After 1 minute, tiny bubbles will appear on the side and mixture should thicken. Continue heating for 1-2 minutes to get cook out the flour taste. Mixture should be thickened by now. Don't let mixture come to a rolling boil or else the starch granules might break.

Pour thickened mixture into a bowl of standing mixer and cool until room temperature by leaving it out on the counter or in the fridge for 1 hour. Don't let it get cold or else it will take forever for the butter to incorporate with the mixture.

Cut butter into tablespoon chunks. On medium low speed, add the butter by the tablespoon until it is all incorporated. Increase the speed to medium or medium high and beat until it comes together (approx 5 minutes). During these 5 minutes, the frosting is going to transform from a curdled mess into a fluffy and soft frosting. If it takes a longer time to come together, just be patient and continue whipping until it gets fluffy.

Add vanilla and continue mixing at low speed for 1 minute.

Use immediately. If using later, you will have to rewhip the frosting.

Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa (natural)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
(I added 1 tsp of instant coffee)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Flour Frosting

I never thought I would start a post title with flour frosting, sounds appetizing doesn't it? Well, it is the best buttercream type frosting I've ever had, tied with SMBC (But only Cassie's version). When I first started baking from scratch, I was really disappointed with frosting because I thought that anything made with 'real' ingredients had to taste better than the fake supermarket stuff we get, but it wasn't. No matter how creamy the butter + icing sugar frosting looked in the stand mixer or piped out on a cake, I just couldn't help scraping it off. Maybe it's the icing sugar I buy or I'm just weird, but all I could feel was gritty, pasty and taste cornstarch. I tried so many versions (with water, milk, cream, part shortening + sifted like crazy), but none of them could solve the icing sugar problems I was having. Finally I gave up and moved on to SMBC. Most people who make SMBC complain that it tastes like a stick of butter..well.. because it does (unless you have the right ratio of ingredients) so I was really disappointed when that failed too. It wasn't until I accidentally halved the sugar when making a quartered version of buttercream for the DB Filbert Gateau challenge when I finally made something that tasted creamy, sweet, and not like a stick of butter! It still wasn't perfect so I went searching for a SMBC with a similar ratio of butter to sugar to egg whites.

I still wanted to make frosting that tastes like the fake whipped cream stuff minus all the chemicals. Many people were saying that flour frostings taste a lot like whipped or pastry cream, but I was reluctant to try them because if I was having a problem with the tiny amounts of cornstarch in icing sugar, the thought of adding flour was grossing me out even more. Then Cassie made a flour frosting for her red velvet cupcakes and since I love her SMBC, I had to give it a try. Most of the recipes on google seemed to have the same ratio of butter, sugar and milk with flour being the only difference so I just randomly chose a recipe, but followed her directions. It didn't make sense to cream the butter and granulated sugar and then add the cooled cooked flour mixture anyway (unless if granulated sugar can somehow magically dissolve).


As for the cupcake, I made a modified version of Billy Billy's vanilla cupcake, but I'm going to save that for another post because it's still not perfect (grr!). If anyone's interested though, here's the recipe to Billy's cupcakes. Oh and since I was baking cupcakes I couldn't help doing a direct comparison of my muffin tins. I mentioned that the William's Sonoma Goldtouch was the best pan I've ever used, but I didn't do an actual side by side comparision. The cupcakes baked in the Wilton were drier at the edges, which was more noticeable the next day and more crumbly. By the way, has anyone used Magic Line pans? I've read some good things about them.

Flour Frosting

1/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup butter cut in cubes (My butter was cool and firm, but I could still leave an indent when I pressed my finger into it)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

1. In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar, flour, salt together. Add the milk and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally (I had to whisk constantly or else it started to stick and clump at the bottom) until the mixture has thickened into a paste and slightly bubbly at edges (You probably don't want it boiling because we all know how boiled milk tastes..)

2. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until cool. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter; beat until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. If the frosting is too soft, transfer the bowl to the refrigerator to chill slightly: then beat again until it is the proper consistency.

3. Add the vanilla and continue mixing until combined.

I love this frosting, but I think it was still a tad rich and could taste a bit cleaner (although I'm being really picky here). I don't think I can reduce the butter though or it won't be stiff enough. I think I might try subbing some of the milk for water or play around with the flour amout next time.