Rich Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Let's take a little break from all my baby related posts and get back into my other passion: baking. Oh how I've missed baking! This past weekend was my friend Christie's baby shower and I offered to bake something. I made vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting.

I got so many compliments, it felt nice :) Too bad I didn't make up the recipe, I'm sure anyone can be a good baker, you just need to have a good recipe and follow it, step by step. Anyhow, here's the recipe for this yummy frosting, it makes enough to frost a 2 layer cake, I had plenty of leftover after frosting 20 cupcakes. I also added food coloring, I made 4 different colors, but I'm only showing the yellow.

Here is the recipe, taken from The New Best Recipe Book.

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

pinch of salt

1 lb (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still cool, each stick cut into quarters.

1. Combine eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer; place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. (do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water.) Whisking gently but constantly, heat the mixture until it is thin and foamy and registers 160 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

2. Beat the egg mixture at medium high speed until light, airy, and cooled to room temperature (about 5 min). Reduce the speed to medium and add the butter, one piece at a time. (it might look curdled at one point, but it will smooth out) Once all the butter is added, increase speed to high and beat 1 minute, until light, fluffy and throughly combined.

Edit: I forgot to mention, please use the frosting right after making it (on cool cake of course). I have tried to refrigerate after making it, but it gets very hard and when you try to mix it again, it curdles, not pretty! So frost away, then you can refrigerate. 

Enjoy!