Frosting Impaired

In DC, we have quite a few cupcake stores and even cupcake food trucks that go around selling tasty cakes. One of these trucks recently began selling a Raspberry Lemonade cupcake. It sounded delicious, but they always sold out by the time the truck reached my area! Since my birthday was last week, I decided to make myself some rasberry lemonade cupcakes. Sadly, I have no pictures of the cupcakes (too much multitasking going on when I made and frosted them), but they were well received.

Due to time constraints, and pre-birthday laziness, I decided to use a boxed lemon cake mix for the actual cupcakes. I did substitute milk for the required water, a trick my friend passed on from her mother. While the cupcakes cooked, I worked on the frosting. Again, due to time constraints/laziness, I took another semi-homemade liberty and used seedless raspberry jam instead of fresh raspberries. I didn't think about it at the time, but it definitely contributed to the sweetness of the frosting and I should have used lemon to cut down on it (I would have used some lemon juice, but apparently all the lemons in my fridge decided to die at the same time). I've only made buttercream frosting once before and it turned out just okay. This time wasn't any better. The icing recipe I found online called for butter, confectioners sugar, and raspberry jam. The icing tasted fine, if not too sweet, but I did not like the consistency. It was very flat and not fluffy at all. Did I use too much sugar? Not enough butter? Didn't mix/whip it enough? I will have to check out some tips and tricks for a better frosting.

Raspberry Frosting (from Honey and Jam)

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
6-8 cups powdered sugar

Place butter and jam in a mixing bowl and mix together to cream.

Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, until you reach desired consistency. Don't be like me--check for consistency after about 3 cups.