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 is the best chocolate frosting I’ve ever made. It took every ounce of my willpower to not eat the entire bowl with a spoon. In fact I left a small amount off the cake just so I could eat it right away. This is a keeper.
I hope I didn’t mess up on the cooking part =/ my flour mixture didn’t boil, it seemed to go from liquid to mousse consistency in the blink of an eye. I’m not done with the frosting yet so we’ll see if it’s still going to work
Hi. I’m new to frosting and the first time I tried butter cream frosting, I failed lol I’m going to bake some cupcakes for my nephew’s birthday next week and I’m thinking this is easy enough for a newbie. Do you think so too? and will this hold in room temperature? I live in Asia and it’s around 32 Celsius here. Thanks
Yep, it will be just fine at room temp. You can do this!
I want to use this on the monkey cake you have posted. But I really stink at making frosting. (I tried and my version was a failure!) You say to “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.” Well, my chocolate chips get soft but never get creamy as yours does. And I can’t cool them because they go from soft to hardened right away. But if I melt them longer they harden (as in burn) even if I’m stirring them. I’ve tried the microwave, the stove (double boiler) and still no success (different chocolates too). Needless to say, this recipe didn’t turn out very well. It did get fluffy but then is rather soft. Does not stand up at all and certainly couldn’t pipe it onto a cake. What am I doing wrong??? I mess up every frosting I try (well, except maybe the butter and powdered sugar one). 🙂 I have tried everything I can think of, like I said, using the microwave or stove various kinds of chocolate, etc. HELP!
RH- the recipe as written should work just fine so I’m not sure what to tell you- I’m sorry I can’t be of more help!
Great recipe! I was out of powdered sugar and didn’t feel like running to the store and this was the perfect solution. I found it a little bitter when I added the extra cocoa so added a jar of marshmallow creme. It turned out great! Next time I’ll try adding just a bit more sugar at the beginning and see how that goes.
Me again 😉 lol before you answer I wanted to ask should butter and roux be at room temperature? Or can I whip up cold butter and mixture? My butter was wood temperature and mixture was straight out the fridge. Wish I could post a pic..
Could it be the chocolate mixture was cooled in the fridge and was still cold? Am I supposed to wait for it to come to room temperature?
I’m making this as we “speak” and it doesn’t look right! After I beat the butter and added the cooled chocolate mixture it looks a mess. It looks like its separating? It’s not mixing beautifully. What am I doing wrong I tried it before and it came out delish, but I can’t seem to get it right again.
This has become my go to chocolate icing recipe. It blows my mind how good it is every single time I make it. Today I did a variation on it where I added 1.5 Tbsp espresso powder to the milk mixture. Holy dark chocolatey mocha goodness!!!
Hi , I would like to know if i can use white chocolate instead of cocoa or if i can make this frosting without chocolate ?
Thanks 🙂
Hello from Mexico! Greatest chocolate frosting ever! Easy to make, holds and pipes well and of course delicious. I used mexican semi-sweet chocolate that has a little cinammon and vainilla and everyone loved that special touch!
Hi, is cocoa used in choc frosting sweetened or unsweetened?
Thank you
Hi, is cocoa powder in choc frosting, sweetened or unsweetened?
Thx!
This is the best chocolate frosting ever. I will NEVER make frosting with powdered sugar again. Okay…never is a long time. Maybe I will sometimes, but the point is, I REALLY like this frosting.
Hi all,
I have just finished making these and oh em gee are they to die for!!! I never really like the chocolate frosting as its too sweet but oh my these i cane get enough of. I also did the vanilla frosting the other day and my friends alllll loved it and asking me for the recipe. I have definitely told them to go to this website!!! Thank you so much!! 🙂
scusate sono Italiana si potrebbero avere le dosi in grammi grazie
Delicious!
My new go to chocolate frosting. My cupcakes where not only beautiful
but tasty.
Hello Sarah!
I was wondering if you could tell me how many grams or ounces of chocolate chips you use? I prefer to use chocolate from a bar and not sure how I’d go about measuring it in a cup as I find it hard enough most times (I’m in the uk). Thank you!
I’m really not sure Jamila! What I do is just chop the bar up and then you can measure it in the same way 🙂
Wow. This is the best chocolate frosting I’ve had in years. I live in Asia, so I used candy bars instead of chocolate chips. I prefer semi-sweet to milk chocolate, but even with milk chocolate, this frosting was delectable. I was doubtful – but this frosting has made a believer out of me!
I tried this recipe today and it turned out great, really smooth and tastes yummy! Thanks. X
I made these, DELICIOUS, but the frosting is very light, is there a way to make it stiffer ?????
Glad you liked it, you could always add a little powdered sugar if you want to make it stiffer, but it will add more sweetness too so keep that in mind.
This looks awesome! I tried your white version of this, and it was great! Your cupcake looks beautiful! If you don’t mind…what tip did you use to pipe? Thanks! 🙂
Hello from Germany 🙂
I’m so glad I finally found a chocolate frosting that tastes really good and not just really sweet. I put it on a yellow cake and we even froze some of it (frosted cake) and it still tasted great. I did change a lttle bit, I used half semi-sweet and half milk chocolate and used 100 gramm of each, so a little bit more than the recipe asks for.
Thank you
I somehow totally messed this up. I had all the ingredients right, but maybe my timing was off. The chocolate “pudding” was super thick and the melted chocolate chips wouldn’t incorporate. I’ll try it again, but for this cake, I think I’m going to go with plain old buttercream!
It’s not a recipe problem, just thought I’d share my mishap in case someone else had trouble. The recipe is great–I’ve made the white icing before and it turned out wonderful!
I made a 6 inch cake and frosted it with your chocolate frosting. I kept the left over in the fridge for 5 days and the frosting got richer and it just melts in your mouth. I just cut down on the butter to 1/2 cup, the sugar to 1/3 cup and the chocolate chips to 1/2 cup.
I just want to know why do I get a grainy consistency all the time? I tried to whip it more but it formed into clusters. I tried to use the 1 cup butter but it was too creamy and buttery for my taste. The color was so light & it didn’t look like a chocolate frosting that I have to re do it again then cut my butter to 1/2 cup. What did I do wrong?
Hi
I think this is the best frosting recipe I have ever tried. I would also like to convert this into various flavours such as mocha, caramel, etc. Any thoughts and advice on that.
Many thanks
Rosalind
For caramel, try palm sugar (also known as coconut palm sugar). It has a caramel taste. I subed it in some cream cheese frosting and it had a nice caramel taste. It added a caramel color to my icing, but since this recipe uses less sugar it won’t add as much color.
Could you please post a link to the original recipe? I can’t find it on the Sugarplum website. But the only reason I want that is because I really need to know how much salt to add if I don’t use salted butter. I never keep salted butter in my house, but when I made the white frosting with unsalted butter, I thought it needed a little salt. I’m not good at adding anything “to taste.” Thanks.
I’m not sure- you’ll have to search around for it over there, sorry!
This chocolate frosting is the best same as the white frosting. It’s more than perfect. I’ve made the chocolate frosting today and the white frosting yesterday but my only concern is it’s not that stiff for piping. Mine turned out literally like a whipped cream not that similar to the pictures so I was wondering where I probable went wrong. Do you have any tips on how to make it more stiff for piping? Thanks for the recipe! 🙂