Aunt Mary's Vanilla Frosting

I think Aunt Mary got her shoe polish recipe and frosting recipe confused. This had no flavor and was extremely greasy. If you need a shoe shine though... this would rock

I'm surprised this frosting only has a three star rating. It might be because the original recipe has too much butter and made my frosting a little too soft. Another time when I added less butter the frosting came out just perfect. This icing was not only great on my vanilla cake but was good when I made cinnamon rolls. I like it because it has few ingredients and takes very little time to make. Come on, allrecipe cooks, try this recipe again!

If you want to clog an artery this is the recipe for you. After just tasting it i could feel the grease stick to my thoat and it doesn't taste much like frosting. STAY AWAY FROM THIS RECIPE!!!

There has to be some mistake ading flour to a frosting receipe. This was the most disgusting frosting I've ever eaten. It tasted greasy and had the wonderful aftertaste of raw flour. YUCK!

I thought for sure other raters were just pessimists but this frosting is not tasty at all. It tastes too much like shortening.

My entire family loved this frosting. It was so very easy to prepare and was not as sweet as alot of recipes. YUMMY

might as well just butter the cupcakes..

I whipped the butter and shortening together, then added the confectioners sugar and vanilla. After I got it combined nicely, I added whole milk by tbsp until it was the consistancy I wanted. When I tried it, it was not good. At all. And I'm being nice. I had to add another cup and a half of confectioners sugar and about four tbsp. of vanilla to get it moderately acceptable. And still, I find it greasy and over sweet. I'm upset I wasted my time and ingredients on this. Partially my fault because I didn't read the reviews first. I was in a hurry.

I did not care for this recipe. I would never recommend this EVER. I had to add 2 more cups of conf. sugar and 2 tsp of vanilla extract just to make it taste decent and it was still clumpy and tasted like butter.

This recipe is great...if you like gaining 5 pounds with each serving! I could literally see the grease FLOODING the frosting. I honestly think starving children in Africa would turn this recipe down.

Simmer the flour and milk in a saucepan until thick. When cool, beat this thickened mixture with the remaining ingredients for 12 minutes with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Excellent cooked frosting.

This recipe NEVER became fluffy despite whipping it with my electric mixer for a very long time. It appears that the recipe either has too much butter/shortening and milk in relation to the confectioners' sugar. Unfortunately, the frosting never became usable for my cake.

This recipe is good if you cut the butter in half and add more confectioners sugar (or just sugar) to compensate. I wonder if the butter amount is a typo.

I enjoy this recipe. Those that gave it fewer stars must be wanting something sweeter. I found this to be more like the fluffly light icing you get on a Wal-Mart cake. Although I do think it requires more sugar than the recipe states. I don't use shortening either instead all butter and that could be the reason for needing extra sugar. OH and probably extra vanilla wouldn't hurt either ;) It takes a while to take form, it's not instant so just keep mixing! It's fluffy, light and yummy ;)

I'm not so sure she copied the directions correctly. This looks exactly like a cooked icing recipe I use. First, you cook the flour and milk (1 cup instead of a 1/2) till it thickens completely like pudding. Let it cool. Then mix your shortening, butter and sugar (mine uses 1 c of regular sugar) for 5-10 minutes. Add the flour mixture and vanilla and beat.

This recipe was WAY greacy and lumpy. I had to triple the flour & powdered sugar to make it workable at all. (I basically just kept adding dry until it was right). It was a bit too sweet after that, but ok.

Use canned.

I add 3 more cups of the confentioneries sugar and it was reall fluffy!

I don't usually give bad reviews but this seriously did not turn out right. I had to find another recipe with similar ingredients in different amounts and then add almond extract to make it edible because I didn't want to waste the ingredients. I am sure the amount of confectioner's sugar is listed incorrectly.

After reading the reviews of this frosting recipe, I am guessing that instead of 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar... it should read 2 to 3 cups of confectioners' sugar.

This frosting looks like cottage cheese! It looked too awful to taste!

I didn't actually taste it, but it came out very nicely. I "forgot" a tablespoon of flour, and added a bit more sugar...

Okay, we thought it looked good, that it was a good idea. Then the worst that could possible happened happened...We made it, then tried it!! ...man o man...this recipies should not be used by children from the ages of 99 and down...ok, that's all I have to say about it.

This is NOT frosting! It's whipped butter! I added about an extra cup of sugar and tbs of vanilla and I still didn't like it.

Okay, I would not normally bother to rate a recipe unless it was really bad! This one tastes very greasy. I had to use 5 times the amount of powdered sugar listed just to get the frosting to a consistency that I could use. I would have just thrown the whole bowl away if I had enough powdered sugar on hand to start over. Beware!

Yuck! It taste more like butter and flour than a frosting. I would never use this frosting ever again.

This icing has such a rich vanilla flavoring.

This is a great frosting. The taste is great and easy to use with my pastry bags for decorating. No more store bought icings for me. Thanks for a great recipe.

It was okay, not very sweet but I understand why people are giving this bad reviews, its because this recipe needs to bad hand beaten and for a long time, atleast 8-10 mins. If you want it sweeter just add a little more powdered sugar. :)

this is a every good recipe and is the best on homemade strawberry cake

Well I should have believed some of these reviews.. It DID turn out flavourless even with extra powdered sugar and vanilla extract. The only thing good about it is that it whipped up nicely. Now to improve on the vanilla and sweetness flavour!

This was so awesome! It tasted so great on cupcakes I made with my friends. The reason all you pessimists didn't like it was because you made it WRONG! It tastes amazing if you make it RIGHT!

I thought this recipe was easy to make, but will not use again. It didnt hold together well. Not even after being in the fridge all day. And it was very greasy tasting.

This recipe was horrible, I had to add in the full box of powdered sugar just to make the frosting tolerable. Do not use this recipe, it will waste your time, money and materials!

My son made this, and we liked it. :)

I added a bit more powdered sugar and about a teaspoon more vanilla and thought it tasted just fine!

I did not care for this recipe.

I would have given this icing 5 stars if it had a bit better flavoring, even after I added additional vanilla & almond extract. Since it contains flour, that tends to overpower everything else. I also had to double the recipe to 20 servings to frost a full 2-layer cake. Next time I will try to add better flavoring... But I definitely enjoy it, and will make it again.

I see a lot of bad reviews that say lumpy. You need to use cold butter and mix mix mix. it takes a long time but when it is finally done it really is smooth. This works best on a really rich or sweeeeet cake bacause isn't very flavorful. My family liked it and even had it at a bake sale and the buyers liked it too.

This turned out really nice. It wasn't too sweet and had a consistency similar to whipped cream. It was very light and smooth. I used it on a chocolate cake with cherry pie filling spread between the layers, so it was kind of like a black forest cake. Everyone enjoyed it, so I would definatly make it again.

This frosting is easy to make, but I would use 1 full cup of confectioners sugar as it isn't very sweet as is. Like the other reviewers mentioned, it was a little greasy! But! My husband does NOT like a sweet icing, so this was great for him. I added zest of a lemon to brighten it up, and maybe add some texture plus flavor. I will make it again, but tweak it.

I can see why no one is raving about this, it tastes too much like flour.

clumpy and disgusting...i tried to make it 3 times...omit the milk and flour and it turns out so so

This recipe is a bad variation of a very simple buttercream iciing. A better version of this would be to simply use 1 and a half sticks of butter and 2 cups of confectioners sugar. Sift the confectioners sugar into the butter while creaming it into a smooth consistency until all the sugar has been added. Then add 1 tbsp. fruit juice or milk, to even consistency. The more complicated you make simple buttercream icing, the worse it tastes!

This was an awesone recipe....I almost didnt want to put it on the cake...I did vary a little though...I added about and extra teaspoon of vanilla and used butter flavored shortening....Everyone loved it!!! Only problem is that you have to keep the cake refridgerated so it doesnt melt...the taste and consistancy was awesome though....I would recomend to anyone!!

I loved it!! It was really easy and great to my tastebuds!!

my friend and i wanted to make a cake for her dad for fathers day.. we needed a quick frosting, so i found this one, it seemed easy enough for a 13 and a 10 year old to make. after it was finished and we tasted it, we knew the recipe was a failure! this is an awful frosting! we had no sugar to make a new one, so we had to add cinnamon, nut meg, blueberries, strawberry jam, and almost fruity pebbles to fix this mess. sounds gross but it turned out alright..

I didn't really like the texture. It was really greasy and sweet. My sister liked eating it, but it wasn't all too amazing otherwise.

Would not thicken up and had no taste had to add cream cheese to make it better and thicken.

when i made this i guess i really screwed it up it was lumpy and didn't look like frosting.but my mother liked it .well anyway what did i do wrong?

little less butter and it would be amazing

I did not like the look and flavor of this recipe.

I should have read the reviews before making it. Then again with shortening as an ingredient, I should have known better. Definitely not a keeper.

I just made the frosting and I initially followed the exact instructions. Of course it came out like soup so I made a few changes/additions. Instead of using just 2/3 cup of confectioners sugar I quadrupled the amount and used 2 2/3 cups. I also used 10 tablespoons of flour rather then 5 to cut down on the sweetness and also increase the thickness. Also, I didn't have shortening, so I used two 1/2 cup sticks of butter being shortening and butter are interchangable and one can be substituted for the other. After I did that, it came out fine. If you wanted to put more confectioners sugar in to make it even thicker, you can. Also, I beat it profusely to get out all the lumps. Of course that may just have been me because the two sticks of butter I used were still a little hard.

YUMMY! A very nice, simple fluffy icing thatis sort of like "Dream Whip" without the yukky chemicals. Pay no heed to the bad reviews below, these people probably didn't use an ELECTRIC MIXER to make it, and so wound up with a soupy mess. But really, it is great. The recipe should mention that you need to use an electric mixer. I'm going to try it with a bit of lemon next time.

I love this frosting! I used it on top of the Banana Cake IX and it was delicious! The other people that had problems with it probably either got the butter too soft or didn't use a mixer.

It looked like scrambled eggs and it was very uneven, I followed all of the recipes directions and it still turned out very badly.

This recipe was weird all my wet ingredients squeezed out I don't know what to rate this

I actually thought this recipe was quite easy to make and tasted very good. I made it the first time and it turned out perfectly. The second time as well it turned out well. My friends and I enjoyed it and loved how it wasn't too sweet. I liked this recipe because it wasn't too sweet. If i eat sweet frosting I get a terrible headache, so I loved this recipe.

I did not care for this recipe.

This recipe indeed tasted bland....to improve the flavor I added an entire box of confectioners sugar and an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract. The consistancy was beautiful and the taste was much improved. I would use this recipe again...only with the variations.

I certainly know how to use an ELECTRIC MIXER and this recipe was very fluffy. However, it was also completely tasteless. If you're going for looks, it's a great recipe; if you're going for taste, try something else. Maybe the butter should be doubled and the shortening eliminated??

I followed the recipe exactly and I found that it makes "soup", not frosting! I was very disappointed in wasting my materials and time.

Is this cake batter? The flour overpowers all of the rest of the flavors.

The frosting came out chunky and unsweetened and was ok but not five star I wish I made a different one

I agreed with one other reviewer. I thought others were maybe a bit too pessimistic about this recipe so I gave it a shot anyway. Don't! It was a waste of butter and time. I threw the whole thing out.

I accidentally added 5 tablespoons of vanilla and 1 tablespoon flour so it tasted horrible but I tried it again being EXTRA careful this time and it was great!!!

Needs at least another cup of confectioners sugar and tsp of vanilla extract, and after that a bit more milk for consistency.

this was greasy and clumpy

Very soft I pored it on my cake

This recipe had no flavor and was very watery i could not put it in a piping bag because when i cut the tip it just came out like water all it taste like is butter

Worst frosting. Dont waste your time and money.

Followed the recipe to a T at first, way too watery. So I added a ton more sugar and some