Frosting

When you are dealing with corn allergies, frosting is hard.  If you add dairy, nut, and soy allergies and refuse to use hydrogenated stuff, it's nearly impossible.  I found out that  powdered sugar in the UK is made with rice or tapioca starch and imported some.  Yay!  But, it's not all that practical really.  Once in awhile, someone will have Miss Roben's powdered sugar in stock.  But that  stuff is nearly $6 a pound.  Yikes!  So, we haven't had much frosting around here that is of the white, fluffy variety.
A couple of months ago, I was at a function, eating yummy cupcakes and discussing frosting.  The frosting on these cupcakes was amazing.  So light, and creamy and not overly sweet.  Turns out, there is a little-known frosting called "roux frosting".  Who knew??
I looked in my cookbooks and didn't see anything like it.  I meant to Google it and just never got around to it.  Then a friend asked for a dairy-free, not too sweet frosting and I started looking.  This blog had a recipe I could work from!  It turned out great.  Wonderful!  I'm so excited!  Beautiful, fluffy frosting that doesn't used powdered sugar.  Here's how I did it:

2 Tbsp brown rice flour
dash salt
1/2 Cup coconut milk (or other milk alternative I assume)

Wisk these together until nice and smooth and cook over medium heat.  Don't stop stiring.  It will get super thick like a goopy paste or too-soft playdough.  Transfer to a small bowl and set aside to cool. DO NOT try to rush it.  And don't think you can use it because it should be "cool enough".  Get it to room temperature.  I stirred mine frequently to keep the heat transfer going.  Putting it in the fridge will lead to failure in your frosting.
When your roux is pretty  much cooled, you can start the next step.  In a larger bowl or the bowl of  your mixer, combine:

1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup coconut oil or Spectrum shortening

Note on the sugar:  I used plain old white  sugar, but I can't think of why you couldn't use rapadura.  You would have to run it through a food processor or blender first though to make it fine enough to work.

Beat it until it is fluffy.  This is critical.  Not just combined, or sorta fluffy, but light as  clouds.  This took me about 4 or 5 minutes of mixing with my hand mixer.  You'll know when it gets there because you'll be all, "wow!  Look at the fluffy sugar!"
At this point and ONLY if your roux is cool, scoop all the roux in there.  Start beating.  It will look like a total mess a few minutes into this process.  Don't give up and just keep going.  Suddenly, your frosting will start looking creamy and fluffy and wonderful.  At this point you can add flavoring.  Vanilla, lemon,  peppermint-- whatever floats your boat.
This frosting is really light.  I did not pipe it, but I think it would do very well.  My only word of caution is this:  Most recipes for this frosting recommend refrigerating it to bring out that butter flavor.  If you have any experience with coconut oil, you should be able predict the outcome of this.  So, keeping it cool is important since coconut oil melts so easily, but refrigerating it is not advised.
Piling it high on cupcakes and cookies is advised though.