Recipe for success: Buttercream icing

Happy Valentine's day! I must admit I am just coming around to this holiday after years of fake gagging myself in response to sappy cards forced on a legion of unassuming schmucks to demonstrate their love once a year. Now I see that I was missing the point: a chance to bake and eat tons of sweets in the name of love. Ain't love grand?


This year I selected cupcakes with buttercream icing. Supposedly this recipe is as close to the famed Publix grocery store's buttercream icing as a home effort has come, according to this icing forum (thank you, icing gurus, for all your hardwork). Stop reading now if you truly love icing and have no idea how it is made, because finding out about icing is an awful lot like finding out about how hotdogs are made. Now that I've totally killed any romantic notions you had dancing about in your head, here is the recipe:

1. Assemble the ingredients:
   

   • ½ pounds butter (2 sticks) • 2 cups Crisco vegetable shortening • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1 teaspoon butter flavoring

   • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract • 2 lbs. confectioners sugar • 1/2 teaspoon salt • 1 tablespoon meringue powder

2. Mix butter, Crisco and salt together on low speed for 5 minutes.
   
3. Add vanilla, butter flavor and almond extract and beat until blended.
   
4. With the mixer off, added the meringue powder and half of the confectioners sugar. Turn the mixer on the slowest speed until the powder has combined in the icing mix. Add the remaining confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup at a time until the sugar is mixed in.
   
5. Crank the mixer up to medium and beat the mixture for approximately 5 minutes. The icing should be smooth and creamy at the end of this time.

NOTES:
• Meringue powder you can find at speciality baking stores or at Michael's craft store in the baking section.
• Butter flavoring you can find in the spices section of your grocery store near all the other extracts. It is a little bottle of liquid, not the butter flavoring granules you sprinkle on baked potatoes and things.
• The original recipe stresses sifting the confectioner's sugar, I started to do this, got antsy and dumped the confectioner's sugar in unsifted. I didn't seem to have a problem, but my confectioner's sugar wasn't too hard or clumped together.
• You can store the icing in the fridge overnight to preserve it. Before using, warm it to room temp and beat the icing in the mixer for 2-5 minutes. Otherwise just eat it straight out of the fridge with the largest spoon you can find.