I made a cake Saturday night to take to a potluck on Sunday; when it was
cooled I started gathering the stuff to make frosting, and we were out
of powdered sugar. ==(8-0

I didn't want to goto the store just for that, and I knew I had seen
recipes before for "boiled frosting" that use granulated sugar, so I did
a search. Found one recipe that kept cropping up over and over so I
made that. From memory, it was:

Boil 1 cup of milk, 1/4 cup flour, and a pinch of salt. Remove from
heat and cool completely. Cream 1/2 cup margarine (I used butter), 1/2
cup shortening, and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add 1 tsp
vanilla and the milk mixture and beat for several minutes until it looks
like whipped cream.

This made way too much frosting for a 9x13 cake (I don't know if it was
enough for 2 cakes) and it looked good but tasted greasy and not sweet
enough. It was a lot better on the chocolate cake than it was licking
the bowl, but the fat : sugar ratio is still way off. I'm trying to
figure out how to improve it because I think it has potential. Using 2
sticks of butter instead of butter and shortening would help some, but
probably not enough.

Maybe add 1/2 cup of sugar to the milk and flour before boiling it, and
just cream 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla
(leave out the shortening, and add the vanilla earlier to help dissolve
the sugar)? Not sure this will whip... What do you think?

--
Bob