breaking the silence

For 15 years of my life, I was duped into believing that making frosting from scratch was an abominably difficult thing to do. When I was 10, I convinced my mother to buy me a small tub of Duncan Hines Chocolate Buttercream frosting, 10 minutes after convincing her to buy me a box of yellow cake mix. And over the course of the remaining years of my childhood, my adolescence, and my teenage years, I convinced my mother to buy me many boxes of things like semi-instant scalloped potatoes and fettucine alfredo, assuring her that all of these things would make for very interesting side dishes to pair with her kalbi and pot of kimchi jjigae.

Then I grew up, which meant that I stopped thinking that transforming a cup of boiling water, a small slab of butter, and a boxful of flakes into a steaming pile of mashed potatoes was a very wonderful thing. And even more significantly, I developed a love for reading recipes. I really do believe that most of the people who think that cooking is difficult must have read fewer recipes than those who think that cooking is easy. (Yes of course, there are other obvious factors to consider - e.g. he who reads more recipes is likely to be more interested in cooking and more likely to have put more effort in and/or engaged in cooking more frequently - this is also not a doctoral thesis but a blog.) I'm pretty sure that one of the main reasons why Betty Crocker is still in business and Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee has any viewers at all is that Betty and Sandra are keeping hush-hush about the fact that many things, including frosting and mashed potatoes, are not difficult at all to make from scratch!

Last week, when I took on the task of making a birthday cake for a very special boy, I made cream cheese frosting, which is both very easy to construct from scratch and very delicious. The below recipe is totally foolproof, so try it, and spread the good word.

Cream Cheese Frosting with Toasted Coconut

Cream cheese frosting is a heart-warming complement to a simple but rich chocolate cake. For my special occasion, I made the Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake from The New Best Recipe.

-ingredients-
1 8-oz. block cream cheese, room temp.
1 stick unsalted butter, room temp.
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 tablespoon brown sugar

-preparation-
1. In a pan, melt 1/2 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add the coconut and brown sugar; stir occasionally until the coconut is toasted and has taken on a deep golden color. Remove coconut from pan and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, beat butter with a mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese, and beat until well-combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes more. Add sugar and vanilla, and beat until combined, about 2 minutes. Fold in coconut.