I have met the enemy, and its name is Buttercream.

According to the news around here, Southern California is UNDER SIEGE. By the weather.

Really, reporters, REALLY? "Under siege"?? Oh my.  Draaaaama. Yeah, SoCal goes into mass hysteria and declares itself a State of Emergency whenever it rains, true that it hasn't rained this much since 4990 BC (depending on who's doing the chronology), and sure a small cypress-type tree might have uprooted itself in my backyard already, but we are not being attacked.

Then again, one of the local tv weathermen around here is named Dallas Raines, so by virtue of his incredibly apropos (and allegedly real) name alone, you'd think I'd believe everything he says, but... oh I just can't. Dallas Raines? --REALLY? It's simultaneously genius and prophetic. And always makes me giggle a little.

But the five consecutive days of rain we're getting is not my personal enemy. I love it and welcome it with wide open arms, and shed a little tear every time it wanes even just a moment. No... I, on the other and gravely more serious hand, am being attacked by a much more formidable adversary, and it's finding and wooing (and then destroying) my vulnerable stronghold. Curse you, fickle Willpower.

You are no match for Buttercream. 

photo courtesy of marthastewart.com. I was too lazy to photograph the actual cupcakes I made.

First of all-- WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT BUTTERCREAM?? How have I gone all these years, baking and eating and baking (and eating), and yet been under such a gross misconception about this, the Robert Pattinson of frostings? I always thought buttercream was that disgusting thick grainy shortening-butter-sugar blend you find on grocery store cupcakes, and when Diane Keaton pleads with Mandy Moore that they should reconcile because "I made you the orange buttercream... I know how you love buttercream" in the horrific movie "Because I Said So" (yeah, I've seen it twice... I like the baking/catering bits), it gets me all confused because, GROSS. Who would want to lick a finger-full off of a cake of that, and why would anyone want to reconcile with Diane Keaton anyway, in any feature film besides Baby Boom?

So imagine my surprise (and joy) when I made my first buttercream last December, for a Red Velvet cake, simply because the recipe called for it.  I trusted the recipe, because it came from this awesome book called Baked given to me by a trusted friend. (Great name, Baked-- no Dallas Raines, of course, but great nonetheless.)

It was a cinnamon buttercream frosting, and the recipe called for sugar, and flour, and milk, and heavy cream, and butter and vanilla and cinnamon... and you have to cook it first and then beat until cool, and add the butter etc... and it's a much longer process than just whipping up some butter and sugar together but OH MY GOODNESS, yum yum YUM. Plus cinnamon buttercream combined with red velvet is HEA-VEN-LY.  Buttercream #1. I've made it twice now.

Last night I made Buttercream #2, this time per a Martha Stewart recipe for white cupcakes with monogrammed fondant hearts for a bridal shower (like the picture above, except my cakes were whiter, and the tines on my french star pastry tip, tighter) and a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This buttercream heated egg whites and sugar and salt, whipped 'til cool, then blended in a heart-clogging amount of unsalted butter and a nominal amount of vanilla, but OH MY GOODNESS, I think I licked an extra two inches on my thighs' worth of buttercream off my fingers after frosting the cupcakes. Aaaand... might have downed an entire (test) cupcake, too.

It's a love-hate relationship, me and Buttercream. Hate to love it. But I do... oh how I do. Please let me bake for you.