Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Making your own frosting (instead of buying it):

I grew up in a house where we rarely had processed foods. Heck, we didn’t even have a microwave until years after everyone else did because my mom was worried about the radiation it might put out. So, it wasn’t until I was older that I even realized you could BUY things like pre-made canned frosting.

That being said, even my parents were realists. Hah. They would often use a box cake mix for convenience, but always make the frosting from scratch. So, here I am in 2020 doing that too! And, as long as you have some sort of electric mixer, making frosting is really pretty easy (and fast).

Ingredients:

For this chocolate buttercream frosting, you need 6 things.

The recipe is adapted from this Williams Sonoma Quick Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe. For one cake, I halved the recipe, and also used less powdered sugar. I used the microwave to melt the chocolate instead of a double boiler… because who has time or patience for melting chocolate in a double boiler in 2020? I’m about convenience over here. Ok, here’s what you need:

• 4 oz chocolate (we used mini chocolate chips we had in the house)
• 2.5 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 8 tablespoon (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoon. milk (plus more if needed)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. salt

Directions

Start with all ingredients at room temperature.

And, double the recipe if you like lots of frosting. This conservatively frosts one cake.

To melt the chocolate: Put the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Take it out, stir with a spoon. Put it back in for another 30 seconds. Take out and stir. It should be melted and not burned by now, but if it needs to melt a little more, do 15 second increments, stirring in between.

To make the frosting: Use the flat beater in a mixer if you have it. But, any mixer will do. Mix butter, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt in mixer for about a minute. Stop, scrape sides of the bowl. Mix again another minute or two on medium speed. If the frosting looks too think, add a little more milk.

Then, pour in the melted chocolate and mix again, until the chocolate is mixed in. That’s it! Now you have delicious homemade chocolate buttercream frosting. Enjoy!

Cake Icing Tip: Use a spatula to put all the frosting into a big zip lock style back. Seal the top… then cut one bottom corner of the bag, and use that to pipe the frosting on your cake evenly before smoothing it with a knife or spatula.

P.S. We use Challenge Butter, because it’s made from only two natural ingredients.

P. P. S. If you’re making a cake for a birthday right now, I also wrote about making the most of a quarantine birthday at home here.