A chocolate fudge frosting that tastes like a mug of hot chocolate, with melted chocolate. No cooking involved, just melt the butter in a microwave and mix up frosting in one bowl.
This chocolate fudge frosting with cocoa will seriously have you swooning. It's a chocolate buttercream frosting that is firm and shiny, and easily holds its shape on a cake or cupcakes and tastes like a mug of hot chocolate.
Not only does this fudge frosting taste incredible, but it also pipes onto cupcakes and cakes like a perfect dream, leaving a tiny crunchy surface just like bakery frosting. I use it often on my dairy-free chocolate cake and my healthy chocolate cake and sometimes even my chocolate tuxedo cake!
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Why You'll Love This Frosting
Easy one bowl frosting. This chocolate frosting is easy to make. You will microwave butter, chocolate and shortening to melt but add everything after that into one bowl and it's easy to mix with a hand-mixer or even a spoon.
Outstanding chocolate flavor. The mix of cocoa and melted chocolate make this frosting outstanding. And the flavor is within your control and based on the brand of either chocolate you use.
Ingredients
Powdered Sugar: Any powdered sugar works, but organic tastes better because it contains tapioca instead of corn starch found in most commercial powdered sugars.
Butter: I normally use vegan butter, but any butter works. Be sure to allow the sticks to be at room temperature before use; this takes about two hours or overnight.
Organic Shortening: Use a healthier red palm version such as by Nutiva or Spectrum. Don't use Crisco or the like. Another frosting that uses this shortening is my fluffy white frosting recipe here.
Cocoa Powder: Dark dutch process cocoa will help darken the color.
Dark chocolate: Melted. Choose a quality dark chocolate bar or chocolate chips.
Supporting ingredients: Milk, vanilla, salt
Substitutions
Shortening. You can replace the shortening portion with more butter but then you won't have the lovely light bakery frosting crunch on the surface, or the rich fudge flavor.
Steps to Make
For more detail, visit the complete recipe at the bottom of this post, but here are general steps.
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Step 1: Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for 1 minute.
Step 2: Melt the butter and shortening together in the microwave at 10 seconds.
Step 3: Add all ingredients to a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer until smooth.
Step 4: Spoon in the melted chocolate last. Add additional tablespoons of milk if needed.
Recipe Tips
1.As with most frostings, you can control the creamy level with the type and amount of milk you add. I used almond milk, but for an even richer flavor you can use a high fat milk such as full fat coconut milk or even heavy cream if you don't need the frosting to be dairy free.
2. This recipe works well with 6 tablespoon of milk, but you can add more or less depending on how dry or wet you want your frosting texture to be.
3.This recipe can be made in one bowl and makes enough frosting to frost about 18 cupcakes or 1 (2-layer) cake.
How to Store
Frosting. Keep it in a sealed container for 1 week, or frozen for 3 months.
Frosted baked goods. Keep frosted cupcakes or cakes on the counter at room temperature for about 24 hours. After that refrigerate them.
What to Use It On?
Frost cakes. I use this frosting on all my cakes, including my healthy chocolate cake, my chocolate tuxedo cake, my fluffy vegan vanilla cake, and my dairy free chocolate cake.
Frost cupcakes. This recipe frosts 18 cupcakes or 12 if you use a lot of frosting per cupcake. I use it on my chocolate cupcakes, my vanilla cupcakes, and sometimes use it as a chocolate filling in my chocolate dipped cupcakes.
Frosting as a cookie dip. Use this frosting with a cookie platter as a dip. Cookies that work include my vegan chocolate chip cookies, my chocolate sugar cookies, and my copycat milano cookies.
Frosting as a filling for homemade chocolates. Use this fudgy chocolatey filling in my homemade filled chocolate recipes.
FAQS
It's very easy to make this fudge frosting from scratch. Just put all ingredients in a bowl, including melted chocolate, butter and shortening, along with sugar, vanilla and salt, mix and you have a delicious dark chocolate fudge frosting.
Fudge frosting can turn grainy if even a spec of water gets into the mix. So be sure all your tools and bowls are stone dry.
I make frosting thicker by adding more powdered sugar. Some people add flour but I don't normally unless I am making my cookie dough frosting.
Other Frosting Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Chocolate Fudge Frosting (with Cocoa)
Equipment
- 1 Mixing bowl
- 1 Measuring cups & spoons
- 1 Hand mixer or stand mixer
Ingredients
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup organic shortening
- 6 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 6-8 tablespoon dairy free milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup chocolate chips, melted
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Instructions
Prep
- Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for 1 minute and set aside.
- Warm the butter and shortening together on a microwave safe dish at 10 seconds in microwave - twice if they don't appear soft.
Make Frosting
- Put all ingredients - except for the melted chocolate - and 6 tablespoon of milk in a large bowl and use a hand-mixer to mix the frosting until it is smooth. Add the additional 2 tablespoon if needed to achieve a creamy texture.4 cups powdered sugar, ½ cup butter, ½ cup organic shortening, 6 tablespoon cocoa powder, 6-8 tablespoon dairy free milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla, ½ teaspoon salt
- Once all other ingredients are incorporated, fold in the melted chocolate. It can be warm, but not hot.⅔ cup chocolate chips, melted
- To keep it soft, put a soaking wet paper towel over the bowl until ready to frost. This will keep the frosting soft for about 10 minutes so plan your baking around this window.
Store
- Store this frosting in the refrigerator for two weeks. To use it, let it sit at room temperature until it is soft. Normally I store it in frosting bags with a 2M frosting tip in the bag so it's ready to use on freshly baked cupcakes.
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