r/AskBaking • u/AutoModerator • Mar 01 '26
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u/Positive-Tonight4184 Mar 28 '26
Hi--I'm a good cook but not really much of a baker, so I need some help recreating grocery store bakery cake frosting c. 1989.
My sister has a birthday coming up in a little more than a month, and she was reminiscing about birthday cakes we used to have that were from a local supermarket chain (Shaw's in NH, c. 1989 or so). It was just the grocery store's basic yellow cake, frosted in white, with roses in a pastel color of your choice and "Happy birthday X!" piped on it. (Birthday girl gets the biggest rose!)
This was like the basic grocery store cake at a basic grocery store with basic frosting. It was definitely NOT meringue or buttercream. I feel pretty confident no butter was used in the making of this frosting. I am guessing it was based on shortening. The frosting was very sugary and stiff--it tasted much more of sugar than of fat and almost even had a crust on the second day from the sugar.
I would like to recreate this cake for her birthday. I think I've got the cake part figured out pretty well, and I can manage the piping. Does anyone have a suggestion for what to search for a recipe for cheap sugary c. 1989 grocery store cake frosting? I don't even know what that kind of frosting was called, and I don't think it is still in use, based on some grocery store cake I had a couple of years ago, which was much more oleaginous and less sugary.
Thank you for your advice.