One of the most popular recipes on Our Best Bites is this flour frosting. Its velvety smooth texture combined with the not-so-sugary bite is perhaps the perfect thing on top of almost any cake or cupcake. If you read through the comments you’ll see that one of the most commonly asked questions is “Where’s the chocolate version??!!” Kate and I experimented a lot with adding chocolate to that recipe without much luck. We came up with a lot of things that tasted amazing, but there were always slight problems with the consistency. I knew I had seen similar recipes in chocolate before but I couldn’t seem to find one until one of you dear readers pointed me to a recipe on Sugar Plum. Sure enough, it was just what I was in search of! I adapted the recipe slightly by using plain ol’ salted butter and omitting added salt. And then I added extra chocolate to get a richer color and flavor. Everyone needs a “go-to” chocolate frosting and this is now mine!The recipe starts by cooking flour, milk, sugar, and cocoa powder in a sauce pan until it thickens, much like the first step in the beloved white frosting.
You’ll strain the mixture so you don’t end up with icky flour lumps in your frosting, because who wants icky flour lumps in their frosting??
While that mixture is cooling off, melt some chocolate chips in the microwave. I found this to be the key to having the frosting remain stable- the melted chocolate seems to bind it.
Then we whip real butter with our chilled chocolate mixture until it’s light and fluffy,
like so. At this point it’s much like the results of just adding cocoa powder to the white frosting.
But the secret is adding in the melted chocolate. Isn’t chocolate always the secret??
Whip that up and then give it a taste. If you want a richer chocolate flavor just add more cocoa powder. I added about 4 Tablespoons extra to get my frosting looking and tasting like this (I also found the color of the frosting darkened as it sat):
It pipes beautifully, and tastes amazing! And just WAIT until I show you what I put it on- that post is coming up Friday- and trust me, you’ll go bananas! (hee hee)
Chocolate Frosting
Recipe slightly adapted by Our Best Bites from Sugar Plum
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup milk
1 cup real butter, softened
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Optional: Additional cocoa powder as needed
Melt your chocolate chips if you haven’t already and set aside to cool. You obviously don’t want it so cool that it hardens, but you can get it close to room temperature and still have it be soft and stir-able.
In a small saucepan, whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, and milk; bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Boil 1-3 minutes or until thickened like a thinned pudding. Remove pan from heat and strain mixture into a small bowl. Cool completely in the refrigerator or freezer.
When chocolate flour mixture is cooled, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture until well combined fluffy, about 1 minute. Finally add in melted chocolate and beat again until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes. If desired, add additional cocoa powder to taste, up to 4 tablespoons more. Spread or pipe frosting on to cupcakes or cake.
Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes.
Storage: Store unused frosting in fridge and bring to room temperature before using again. If needed, beat with an electric beater before using.
Questions & Reviews
This frosting was delicious. I was a little skeptical about the amount of butter but it all worked out in the end. The only modification I made was to cook the flour and cocoa mixture until it was VERY thick. I cooked it for a lot longer because I could still taste the flour. I was whisking the whole time so I wouldn’t have to strain it after and I didn’t. It was amazing on an orange sponge cake!
this is real beautiful recipe, many thanks.
This chocolate frosting is amazing. AMAZING. I used it on my daughter’s 13th birthday cake. Thanks!
Dear Sara,
Silly question from Hong Kong. Once the cupcakes are frosted with your chocolate frosting, how long can they last in a fridge? Will the texture gets funny if the frosted cupcakes stay in the fridge 3 or maximum 5 days? Sorry for asking so many questions and thanks for your time:)
I don’t usually make cupcakes more than 1-2 days ahead of time. They won’t go “bad” but they certainly won’t be as good.
I found the first time that when I let it come to a boil it gets too thick and there’s no hope of straining it so better to take it off the heat as soon as it gets to a thin pudding stage. I also found like a previous poster that if you make sure your dry ingredients are mixed well and you add your milk slowly while whisking it, you won’t end up with any clumps to strain out. The mixture needs to become cool before you can blend it with the butter. Mine was warm and didn’t set up right but after putting it all back in the fridge for 20 minutes it whipped right up. So delicious!
I’ve tried the white version twice and just tried the chocolate this weekend. My frosting never gets stiff, I’m thinking I need to cook it to a thicker pudding. When I pipe it on cupcakes it kinda spreads like it hasn’t set up. Any ideas?
Haven’t tried the chocolate version yet, but the vanilla one was very nice. I didn’t have to worry about lumps because I put the whisk attachment on my mixer and blended the flour and milk in a small bowl until smooth before heating it. I also don’t particularly like things made with white sauce so I was very hesitant to try it. I didn’t want to risk tasting raw flour in my frosting, so I cooked it until it was quite thick. Thicker than pudding as the recipe suggests. I let it cool (get cold) in the refrigerator while I mixed butter and sugar. When I combined the flour mixture with the sugar mixture, it never even went through the “ugly” stage. It didn’t even take 5 minutes. Made it twice, once was a double batch and it turned out great both times. Oh, I made too many cupcakes so I put them in a covered container in the frig for a couple of days. The frosting was hard while it was cold, but once it reached room temp, it was exactly as before. No seperating at all. I even prefered the cold texture. VERY firm and smooth, but I’m weird that way. I’ll be trying the chocolate version tomorrow!
I want to make this for my son’s birthday cake. I am wondering what brand of chocolate chips you use? I find some brands really harden up more than others and am scared it will affect the outcome
Honestly, I’m not too picky about chocolate chips! I usually buy Nestle, Tollhouse, or Guittard.
Thanks so much for the fast response, and for all your amazing recipes! I’m excited to try this, the flour frosting rocked my world (in the best of ways) when I discovered it, and I’m sure this will do the same.
My frosting was delicious but wasn’t stable. Does the butter need to be colder? My frosting was never fluffly but more like a mousse. I want to remake but of course want to make sure i’m not missing something. When I refidgerated my cake the frosting did harded up but as soon as it came to room temp it was moussie (i jus made that word up) (my butter was room temp and I did feel like my stove mixture was closer to a pudding consisentcy than thin pudding). Help!
Hmm, I’m honestly not sure! The pudding mixture is probably better if it’s a little thicker, so I don’t think it’s that. You might just have to keep experimenting!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just made a teddy bear ballerina cake for my daughter’s birthday and used this frosting for the brown bear. I was so nervous about messing anything up because I’m a relative beginner at cake decorating but my goodness, this frosting was absolutely PERFECT for piping! And of course, it tastes delicious! You girls are the best; you are my go-to site and cookbook for pretty much everything. 🙂
This frosting is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!! Thank you SO much for sharing! I’ve never been a frosting fan due to it being too sweet and overpowering, so I went on the hunt for a “light and fluffy” frosting recipe and found your blog. This came out not only delicious but BEAUTIFUL! I was afraid I cooked the cocoa/flour mixture a bit too long, as it was more a pudding-y texture when I took it off the heat (but no lumps!) but it turned out great. I used it atop the “chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes” recipe on allrecipes.com and it is just what they needed because (as you can imagine) they are sweet enough by themselves. Thanks again!
I made this – it was delicious, although slightly ‘unstable’ 🙁 Could I add meringue powder to stiffen it up at all?
Also, how long can I keep any unused frosting for in the fridge please?
Thanks 🙂
I’m not sure about the meringue powder, I’ve never had a problem with it being unstable- you’d just have to experiment. And you’ll have to play the frige by ear too, at least a few days.
Could you use this recipe under fondant? Does it harden up slightly or stay quite soft? Im making a cake covered in fondant but need that middle layer between the cake and fondant layer, this recipe sounds amazing but not sure if right consistency?! 🙂
Please email response if can 🙂
I don’t use fondant so I can’t tell ya for sure, but it does set up pretty well so I would assume it would work?
Made this for the first time today. Absolutely marvellous. Thank you 🙂
I made a white chocolate version of this, and apparently it was delicious. (I’m not a huge white chocolate fan, so I can’t corroborate the story!)
I modified half the original recipe and it did 9 cupcakes piped high. I made the version below and got enough for close to 15 lol My first batch was quite runny (and not enough anyway), so I refridgerated it while I made the second part, and then whipped the two together and it was perfect! So if it’s a bit runny, just stick it in the fridge for a wee bit!
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4-6T all-purpose flour
4T white chocolate drinking mix (I used italian style)
3/4 cup of milk
3/4 cup soft butter
130g of white chocolate, melted
I made it as per Sara’s recipe. The only thing you might need to play around with is the flour – as cocoa powder absorbs moisture, I found the addition of a little extra flour to be helpful to get the sugar/flour/drinking chocolate/milk mix to the correct “pudding” stage – if it wasn’t thickening up, I simply took it off the heat, whisked in another Tbs of flour very quickly to ensure there were no lumps and then put it back on the heat to cook the flour.
You can also add a bit more white chocolate drinking mix to taste once it’s all combined.
Thank you for sharing this frosting recipe, it is the most delicious cupcake frosting I have ever had, now when I have the hard buttercream from the professional cupcake shop, it just doesn’t measure up to this one. BTW – I was lazy and didn’t bother straining out the lumps and didn’t end up with any in the end, must be the beating of all the ingredients together. How long does this stay good for since can’t be refrigerated? Thanks again.
You’ll definitely want to store the frosting in the fridge, it just needs to be brought to room temp and re-whipped before using.
The first time I made this, I kind of drizzled the melted chocolate in and when it hit the whipping blade, it flung it to the sides of the bowl, making the choclate get hard, thus leaving lots of little bits of un-mixed chocolate in the frosting. I used it to frost cupcakes, and while fine for cupcakes, it would not work for a nice cake.
The second time I made this, I shut off the mixer, lifted the blade, and then carefully added the melted chocolate to the bowl, and then very softly mixed in the melted chocolate. It worked perfectly this time! It went great on cake I made. I did use a total of 1/3 cup of cocoa powder, which I added all to the initial mix to cook. I did not add the extra cocoa at the end. Not very sweet, but the triple chocolate fudge cake with caramel toffee chip filling was sweet enough that the two melded perfectly together.
Thanks for the great recipe!
I have been looking for a great chocolate frosting recipe. The only thing is that am making a wedding cake and covering it in fondant so I won’t be able to refridgerated it. Since this recipe calls fir milk, will it be safe to be kept out overnight? Thanks
yep, should be just fine 🙂
I’ve made the vanilla flour frosting and love it, so I’m excited to try this chocolate version. However, I have a no-milk participant in the consumption party, so I’m wondering about subbing in either rice milk or coconut milk. I’m new to baking/cooking with those milks. thoughts? advice??
Not sure, you’ll have to experiment!
Oh my word! If this is as good as the white flour frosting, I can NOT wait to try it!
This recipe is perfection. I followed instructions and had the best frosting- a French friend who prides herself on baking actually asked for the recipe. Incidentally, I tried it with strawberries and it works just fine. Not as pipable, but still very tasty.
This frosting was amazing! My family loved it, not too sweet, very chocolatey, and super fluffy!! Yum, thanks for posting 🙂
I really like to try this, but as always with american recipes I’m struggling with the “cups”. Being from Belgium, I’m used to the metric system. 🙁
But we’ll see, making this frosting tomorrow! wish me luck!
I realize it’s been a week, but I figured I’d post the metric equivalents really quick – 512 g sugar, 15g cocoa, 236ml milk, 227g butter, and about 200g chocolate. (I don’t know if these are exact, but they’re the best I could find.) I hope it turned out well! 🙂
If I use unsalted butter, how much salt should I add to it?
Not sure Stephanie, I’d just do it to taste.
Sooooo good! Can’t wait to try it. I’ve been looking for the perfect frosting without Crisco! Sara, will this recipe be enough to frost 2 9×2 cakes? how about the white frosting recipe? Thank you so much.
This frosting is amazing. My fiance really doesn’t like powdered sugar-based frostings so I’ve been looking for alternatives. While a swiss meringue buttercream is delicious, it’s quite involved; this is so much easier! And it’s so chocolatey. This is going to be my go-to frosting recipe from now on. Thank you so much!
Just made this for my daughter’s birthday cake. It is the best frosting I’ve ever made and I’ve made a lot. Thanks for this version! Next time I think I’m going to try adding Nuttella instead of the melted chocolate. Didn’t want to mess around with this for such an important day. It was perfect and easy to frost her large cat cut-out cake.
I made this the other day and it was soooo good!! I topped it on black bean cupcakes and it was the perfect compliment! Lisa B, I was wondering how Nutella would work in this recipe, too! I worried that it may not firm up as well, because it originally isn’t solid. Maybe you can let us know how it turned out!
What tip do you use for the frosting on your cupcakes? I really like the look and would love to duplicate it!!!
It’s a Wilton 1M
OH Yeah almost forgot I added another cup of melted chocolate.
Ok, so I made this recipe exactly how it said BUT I didnt have real butter so made it with sticks of margarine and of course it did not get thick even after beating for about 10 minutes so I added confectioners sugar about a cup ( I just added a little at a time until I had a desired consistency) and added a couple of more Tbls of unsweetened cocoa and it turned out great, very silky, piped wonderfully and tasted amazing (of course just a little sweeter than the original recipe)if you want me to send a pic email at [email protected]