Hi, and first of all thanks for your help about half a year ago!  unfortunately, i did not take photos :(  I will fix that next time.  I am looking for a frosting recipe that is not very sweet and came across this one: https://www.landolakes.com/recipe/19253/old-fashioned-cooked-frosting/  It looks like it would make 2.5 cups of frosting.  I am not sure if it is granulated sugar or powdered sugar..any ideas?  I was thinking I could replace some of the sugar with crushed almonds...maybe a small amount of cream of tartar.  Any ideas?  Not committed to this recipe...but it looks promising.

Reading the replies one person mentions that granulated sugar  is used   They all say it takes *A LOT * Of beating to get the grittyness out & that it must be refrigerated at all times    The type of recipe also goes by the name ermine frosting   

Could that be changed by using the same weight of powdered sugar - instead of the granulated?

I really have no idea   Read the replies on the recipe —  there is one person who said some thing about mixing the sugar w/the flour etc & cook til no longer gritty   You are probably going to have to do some experiments to find what works best for you 

I've made ermine frosting and I don't remember a problem with grittiness or over sweetness.  June is the Queen of Ermine, maybe she will step in.  

Have you considered using a stablized whipped cream?  Using cream, it can be as sweet, or not, as you like it.  My husband likes it slightly sweetened, I prefer it unsweetened.  Of course, it would also require refrigeration.

Oh, by the way, adding ground almonds would pretty much guarantee that the frosting, while yummy, would be gritty.  Almonds do not dissolve.

When it comes to cooked flour frosting, I use the recipe in that link

http://www.weheartrecipes.com/vovomary/recipes/9687-even-better-cooked-flour-frosting

By cooking the sugar with the milk/cream and flour, it is not gritty at all. I do use 4 tablespoon of flour instead of the 3 that are called for in the recipe, it makes the frosting a little stiffer. Even with this addition, this type of frosting is more on the soft side. Not good for piping, but wonderful to fill and frost a cake. I even used it under fondant without a problem. Definately, this type of frosting is not as sweet or buttery/heavy as american or swiss meringue buttercream. As for using almond in place of some sugar, I thing it woud make the frosting gritty, but I've never tried it myself. If it's the almond taste you want, I would use almond milk instead of the regular milk and substitute maybe 1/3 of the vanilla for almond extract. If you want the frosting less sweet than it is, I would try reducing the sugar by a 1/4 or 1/3 of a cup. I would not replace it by anything. Never tried it though, but I cant see why this would not work.