Vanilla Icing

Just like my classic vanilla cake recipe, this icing is the perfect blank canvas for any flavor. It has just the right amount of sweetness and vanilla, plus a lot of body, so it holds up well. You can pair this with any of your favorite cake recipes, or experiment with food coloring to create fun designs. Since this is a butter-based buttercream, if you want to simply brighten the icing you can add a small (and I mean SMALL) amount of purple food coloring to balance out the yellow.

I also love to decorate cakes with fresh flowers! If you're into it, too, grab a bouquet of your favorite stems and cut them so they're 2" long, then cover with aluminum foil. Carefully place the stems into the cake.