Dark Chocolate Frosting Recipe
I’ve been on the hunt for a great chocolatey frosting. When in doubt, I’ve always just gone with ganache. You can dip cupcakes in ganache for an easy slick cover. Or you can let it thicken up and spread it on with a spatula. But I wanted something I could pipe in pretty swirls on cupcakes.
Now I’ve tried the Hershey’s chocolate frosting and wasn’t a huge fan. I’ve also tried chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream. I love SMBC but that stuff just wasn’t chocolatey enough. That’s where this frosting comes in.
I saw this recipe pop up on My Baking Heart and instantly perked up. It’s a humorous story about her Count Chocula obsession. I wasn’t so much interested in a Count Chocula cupcake, but the frosting on top looked like a great chocolate frosting. And boy, is it great!
When I made this frosting I actually didn’t have any milk in the house. It happens quite often around here. Since I’m lactose intolerant and Hubby isn’t a huge milk drinker, we just don’t keep it in the house. On a side note, when my brother A was here, he went through a half gallon in a day. I’m pretty sure he would have drank more if I had more in the house. But I digress. Back to this frosting. I had no milk, but I had some Baileys. So I subbed that in place of the milk. It was great. Feel free to use whichever you prefer.
Remember how I mentioned I had bought a boat load of pink sprinkles for really cheap. Yea, these are the same sprinkles again. I think I’ll be using them for years!!
Two Years Ago: Pina Colada Cupcakes
Dark Chocolate Frosting
Yield: Makes enough for 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
6 Tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk (or Baileys)
Directions:
Cream butter and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, combine powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture.
Slowly add milk until frosting reaches desired consistency, then beat another 5 minutes creamy.
Recipe adapted from My Baking Heart
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These look fantastic and are so festive!
Oh my, these look divine! I recently made something similar, but with no chocolate – just a pumpkin batter with cream cheese topping. But I definitely think I must try these too.
These are absolutely beautiful!
Look wonderful!
These look awesome. I just wish it made a bigger pan!
They’re pretty rich, but I would imagine you could just double it and make it in a 9×13 pan if you wanted!
I made pumpkin spice brownies on Friday and they were delish so I bet these are EVEN BETTER! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be following your tweaks!
~ingrid
i always make a pumpkin cheesecake in the fall with a ginger cookie crumb crust, but i’m liking the chocolate component in your recipe even more.
oh yum – love pumpkin, and the chocolate/pumpkin combo looks wonderful!
These look great! Is there a way I can make them non-dairy? Something I can sub the cream cheese for? Thanks!
Heather – I’ve had great luck subbing Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese in cheesecake recipes in the past. I think that would definitely work and you could use Earth Balance in the brownie portion. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Hi Jenn! I just wanted to let you know that you won the giveaway on my blog last week. I emailed you, but never got a response. Could you email me your mailing address to jennharton@paducah.com. I have to pass it along to myblogspark so they can send you your prize package!
Thanks, Jen…I’ll let you know how they come out!
OH wow these do look delicious! I love all that swirled pumpkin…yum!
Those look amazing!
Wow, I love these! My husband would die of happiness of I made these for him – pumpkin cheesecake is his favorite thing for fall.
They look like tiger fur – very cool! What an interesting flavour combination.
We love these at my house! I like your idea of dark chocolate – I will have to try that next time.
beautiful! And they look so delicious!! I agree I don’t normally think of pumpkin with chocolate… but you have me convinced!
The tops of these are a work of art! Love it!
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
hi.. just dropping by here… have a nice day! http://kantahanan.blogspot.com/
The side-view shot totally won me over. These look delicious!
This looks so yummy.
I now know what to make for the office potluck!
Those look amazing. I love pumpkin with chocolate, I plan on making these soon.
Your brownies look delicious! I am curious since I would like mine to taste more like pumpkin pie than plain pumpkin should i add pumpkin pie spices or follow your recipe for the spices?
Thanks!
fawkes – There are a decent amount of spices in the pumpkin portion of the batter. I would recommend making is as the recipe states, then taste it before you pour it into the pan. Maybe then add some pumpkin pie spice if you’d like.
I made these over the weekend and they were scrumptious!! I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin but this recipe is now a fall staple. I plan on making them for the family on Thanksgiving…thanks for sharing this!
I made these the other day and they were great! a hit at work! yum! thanks!
I stumbled across your blog from a Facebook friend and made these brownies last night. DELICIOUS!! I doubled the recipe and it does just fit in a 9×13 pan and took about 60 mins to bake. It’s worth the wait for them to be chilled in the fridge. The flavors are even more delicious that way.
Oh YUM! And gorgeous, to boot. I never thought pumpkin and chocolate go together either, until I tried it! 🙂 Now I’m hooked. Good idea to double up on the cheesecake layer…you can never have enough pumpkin cheesecake after all!
Thank you so much for participating in our event! These brownies look amazing. They say Halloween to me for sure!
I made these– now I love them! Will be repeated each fall 🙂
Amazing! I loved these so much I played with them a bit and made cranberry cheesecake brownies for my christmas baking.(I didn’t stumble on to these till christmas.) I’ll let you know when I put those up on my blog! With credit to you of course!
Lexi – cranberry cheesecake brownies sound very intriguing. Can’t wait to see them.
Hi Jen! I made these for Heather@BFM’s (comment listed above) birthday and she loved them! Unfortunately I could not find the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder (I tried 3 stores) so I had to make them with the regular cocoa powder. Can you tell me where you found the Hershey’s Special Dark??
Kasey – I have actually had a hard time finding it as well. I had actually all but given up on it until one day it caught my eye at the grocery store. I proceeded to buy all three containers. I would say just keep an eye out for it and good luck!
1/2 cup of flour seems like very little. Is that correct?
Pup – Yes, that is the correct amount of flour. Most brownie batters have very little flour in them.
Just made these- delicious! I only had the milk chocolate powder, so I’m excited to try it again with the special dark powder.
I doubled the recipe and it perfectly filled a 13×9 pan so you might try it. 🙂 And they are amazing. Also I used margerine not butter and found they were more moist. Happy Baking!
Hi there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and found that it’s truly informative. I’m
going to watch out for brussels. I will be grateful if you
continue this in future. A lot of people will be benefited from your writing.
Cheers!
thank you for sharing your interesting and helpful information 🙂
please, visit my web:
obat asam urat
I made these with my nieces and over all they were pretty good, but something about the pumpkin part tasted off. Still, fun and festive to make!