Buttercream Frosting Mayhem

Okay so you all have seen me make this frosting a few posts back...and it came out perfectly fine the first time, but since then my frosting endeavors have been a total disaster.  Apparently a few of you had problems with the frosting as well...so I called in the big guns..."MOM!  Help me, please!"  If Mom can't fix it, no one can.

Of course, she fixed it with the cooking ease and grace that can only be possessed by my mother...lol.  I took pictures to make sure that we all had step-by-step instructions.  So here it goes... The best frosting that I've ever had take 2:

When your milk and flour mixture thickens it should look like this.  Once it thickens to this consistency be sure to remove it from the heat or else it'll get lumpy and over cooked.  Plus it needs to cool down to room temperature before you can mix it into the butter and sugar mixture.  (If you jump the gun, like I have, you'll end up with a pool of melted buttery shlop...not pretty for frosting.)  Tip:  DO NOT walk away from the stove when you are doing this!  It needs constant supervision and stirring.  Don't answer the phone or the door or anything.  If you really need to tend to something else (ie. your kid is starting a small fire in the living room), take your pot off the stove and go back to it once you are finished.  I'm serious!

This is what your whipped butter and sugar mixture should look like when it is all finished.  You need to whip the butter and sugar together until there are no granules of sugar left in the mixture.  It should be relatively smooth with the sugar melting into the butter for a nice creamy consistency.  Mom opted for the paddle attachment for this process.  I think it worked out well, but I'm sure that the whisk attachment would have worked as well.  Tip:  Once this is finished put it back in the fridge while the flour mixture is cooling.  It needs to be cold when the flour mixture is whipped in.

Once everything is cold (butter mixture) and cooled (flour mixture), beat the two together for a minute until it looks like whipped cream.  It shouldn't separate or get all running...if you followed my tips and directions carefully...lol.  If it doesn't come out exactly as planned, add in a block of cream cheese.  That has saved my frosting disasters in the past. :)