Simple Vanilla Icing Recipe {Vanilla Glaze}

What's the Difference Between Icing, Buttercream, and Frosting?

Just like my favorite American Buttercream recipe, vanilla icing is made from powdered sugar (confectioners sugar), vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and milk or cream. The difference between buttercream and icing is in their consistency.

• Vanilla Buttercream is thick and creamy. It's solid enough to cover cakes and other baked goods in a thick layer and can be used to add decoration.
• Vanilla Icing (also called glaze) is thin and pourable. It's meant to be poured over cakes and other baked goods in a thin, almost transparent layer of sugary goodness.

Like buttercream, frosting is a term used to describe something thick enough to spread over baked goods with a knife.

So what's the difference between buttercream and frosting?

The central difference between buttercream and frosting is that buttercream contains butter. Frosting may contain butter, but it doesn't have to. Frosting is more of a broad term for anything that covers a baked good.

In other words, all kinds of buttercream are frosting but not all kinds of frosting are buttercream.

Ingredients for Vanilla Icing

Vanilla Icing requires just 4 ingredients:

• Confectioners Sugar (also known as powdered sugar).
• A pinch of salt. A bit of salt is crucial to adding balance to the sweet flavor of icing.
• Pure Vanilla Extract. It's important to use real vanilla extract in this icing, not the imitation stuff that can cause the icing to taste a bit synthetic. Alternatively, you can use the seeds scrapped from ½ of a vanilla bean.
• Milk, half and half, or heavy cream. Milk will give vanilla icing a thinner consistency, and heavy cream will create a slightly thicker icing consistency. Half and half is somewhere in-between. You can also adjust the consistency of vanilla icing by simply adding more or less of whichever liquid you choose to use.

How to Make Simple Vanilla Icing

Vanilla Icing is one of the fastest, easiest ways I know to add a delicious finishing touch to all variety of baked goods. The whole process takes about 5 minutes. Here's what you do:

Add powdered sugar and a pinch of salt to a small bowl and stir to combine.

Add a tablespoon each of vanilla extract and milk, half and half, or heavy cream. Use a spoon to stir the icing until it's perfectly smooth without any lumps.

Lift the spoon from the bowl to check the consistency and add as much more milk, half and half, or heavy cream as you like to reach the desired consistency.

• If you want a thicker layer of icing over whatever you plan to use it on, add less liquid.
• If you want a very thin layer of icing, add more liquid.

A Few of My Favorite Uses for Vanilla Icing:

There are thousands of ways to use vanilla icing, but here are a few of my personal favorites:

• Vanilla Loaf Cake and Cinnamon Loaf Cake
• Perfect Pound Cake
• Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
• Cinnamon Streusel Mini Muffins
• Vanilla Glazed Chocolate Almond Scones
• Double Chocolate Muffins
• Cherry Turnovers with Cream Cheese and Almonds
• Drizzled over the top of this One Layer Chocolate Almond Cake

Drizzle vanilla icing over blueberry muffins, mixed berry muffins, or apple cinnamon muffins. Or, pour over waffles or French toast instead of maple syrup or honey.

Vanilla icing also makes a delicious quick topping for doughnuts, cupcakes, single layer cakes, and snack cakes.

Vanilla Icing Variations:

This Vanilla Icing Recipe is something that I like to call a building block recipe because it's one of those tried-and-true recipes that I come back to over and over again.

Sometimes I make the basic vanilla version and sometimes I use the recipe as a jumping off point to create something new.

+ Scroll through all Building Block recipes

• Replace the milk, half and half, or heavy cream with any kind of fruit juice. For example, using lemon juice will make lemon icing, or use orange juice to make orange icing.
• Replace the milk, half and half or heavy cream with maple syrup. Maple glaze is my favorite way to top Homemade Apple Fritters.
• Replace some or all of the milk, half and half, or heavy cream with honey. Honey glaze is my favorite way to top Homemade French Crullers.
• Use any other kind of extract instead of or in addition to the vanilla extract. More often than not when I make this icing, I add about ½ teaspoon of almond extract in with the vanilla. I just love the combination of that touch of almond with the vanilla. But, you could play around with many different types of extract to create any number of icing flavors.