You thought I forgot the frosting, didn't you? No, it was part of my sinister plot to continue to pad my posts for this exercise in frustration NaBloPoMo. Before the frosting recipe, a story about cake.
Sometime during the late 1980's my sister Jenny obtained a recipe for turtle cake that involved a box cake mix, caramels, and chocolate chips. What about the pecans you ask? Well, she hates nuts, so she omitted them from the confection. To my way of thinking, that's the whole point, but it was her thing, not mine. Anyway, one night she had made a pan of the this gooey goodness and left it out on the counter at my parents house. She must have made it for a potluck at work, or something like that, because each piece was precious. For some reason, it was left unattended on the counter for a few hours and when she returned to it, half the pan had been devoured. When she discovered the theft, she screamed "Who ate my fucking turtle cake?"
My friends Lori and Charlie happened to be at the house, and may or may not have contributed to the reduction in turtle cake. Charlie is one of those people for whom teasing is an art form. He never takes anything seriously-and I mean that in a good way-and never allows anyone else to take themselves too seriously either. Steve is also exactly like this, which is a perfect balance for someone like me who believes I'm responsible for the well being of...the world. I need someone to deflate that cartoon bubble from time to time.
I digress. So Charlie and Lori laughed at Jenny's outburst, and Charlie asked if Jenny would bake him a fucking turtle cake. The joke lasted for weeks, until Charlie's birthday. Jenny showed up at Charlie and Lori's house bearing a pan. Inside the pan was a turtle cake. Prior to delivery, Jenny had purchased one of those frosting tubes from the grocery in the most offensive color of green that she could find. She wrote in large letters on the top of the dessert, "FUCKING TURTLE CAKE."
Okay, cream cheese frosting. Good on so many things, like pumpkin bread or cake, carrot cake...but not fucking turtle cake.
Cream cheese frosting
8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese
1/4 C softened butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups (or more) powdered sugar
Cream the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla and powdered sugar until desired thickness. Store any leftover frosting in the fridge up to a week.
