If I wanted to leave out the lemon juice in this recipe from the Cake Bible, do I need to substitute something else for it or will I just have a thicker icing without adding the 1.5 tbs of lemon juice?

You could just leave it out, but the frosting will seem sweeter.  If there was a liquor you were interested in, you could add that instead.

Julie, Do you think you could substitute any non-colored extract like coconut or orange? I did the carrot cakes from RHC this weekend and the white chocolate cream cheese was quite sweet- delicious, but sweet. I used to find clear vanilla in Paris, but don’t run across it much anymore. Smirnoff now makes all find of mostly clear flavored vodkas. The only problem is I hate buying fifths to get 1 or 2 T at a time. Not just the $$, but the bottles take up a lot of room!

Lemon juice is an ingredient that needs to be offset with a fair amount of sugar.  So that is built into the recipe.  Similar to recipes with cocoa or coffee, they are bitter and need extra sugar in the recipe.  If you omit the bitter/sour ingredient, then the mix has too much sugar.  Just curious, why don’t you want the lemon juice? 

I was trying to think of something that would offset the sugar in the recipe, and unsweetened liquor (like brandy or rum) came to mind.  You could add an extract and it wouldn’t be a problem, but it probably wouldn’t it solve the “too much sugar” issue.  If you really can’t have the lemon juice in the frosting, then the next best thing is to reduce the sugar.  You can try a brand of white chocolate that is slightly less sweet, like Green/Black or Vahlrona (maybe you are already using something like that?).  The next step would be to purchase some cocoa butter and substitute that for a portion of the white chocolate until you get the sweetness level that you want.  Cocoa butter is sold by King Arthur, L’epicerie, chocosphere, etc.

You could also look for another recipe, one that doesn’t use white chocolate.  Forum member Anne has one that uses honey and cream cheese, but I don’t know how the sweetness level compares to Rose’s white chocolate version.

It’s very lightly sweet, but that can be modified to taste.  You can see it here.  http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/2622/

Here’s an excerpt (this makes enough for 3 layers):  1 lb. butter, 1 lb. cream cheese, 2/3 c. clover honey, 1/4 c. sour cream, 1 T. vanilla.  It is magnificent!!!  And, it stays soft, even in the fridge.  It is super-light and whippy dip. 

If you want it stiffer, use raw honey or part raw honey (which is pretty solid at room temp).  If you want it sweeter, you can add more honey (but that will make it softer, so I’d suggest adding raw honey) or you can add powdered sugar.  If you add powdered sugar, it’s good to make it a day ahead, as that sort of ‘dissolves’ the powdered sugar so you don’t ‘feel’ it.  Also, for the sour cream, I just pitched it in there because it was leftover from the cake, so you don’t necessarily have to buy it special, but it is nice!

If you try it, I hope you enjoy it.  It’s super-fast and super-easy!!!!