Brownies with Raspberry Frosting
Brownies are topped with a sweet Raspberry Frosting that gets it’s pink color completely from the fruit!
I don’t know if I’ll be able to do a FULL month of only pink foods this October, but I’ve definitely got quite a few pink recipes coming your way. I hope you enjoy them. I’m trying, once again, to make pink foods without food coloring. It can definitely be a challenge, but with so many red/pink berries out there, it’s not too difficult. And don’t forget the beets! I love beets and can’t wait to share some awesome beet dishes with you guys this month.
But I digress. My original plan was to make some chocolate cupcakes and top them with this pink raspberry frosting. But I filled my cupcake liners too full and they came out ugly. Delicious, but ugly. So I threw them in the freezer as I’m sure I’ll find another use for them (maybe I’ll throw them in some ice cream like I do with all my other leftover desserts).
It was late at night, I had already made the frosting, and I needed a treat to bring to work the next day for our monthly birthday celebration. So I threw a batch of brownies in the oven as my back-up plan. And honestly, I’m kind of glad the cupcakes didn’t turn out. Because this frosting on my favorite brownies was RIDIC.
As you can see in the pictures, this recipe results in a decently thick layer of frosting on top of the brownies. You could cut the frosting recipe in half if you don’t like as much frosting, but if you do that, I’m not sure we can be friends. I always swipe a taste here and there when I’m frosting something but I was literally eating this frosting by the spoonful. It’s that good.
Fair warning though, it is kind of a pain to make. There’s cooking and straining and more cooking, then chilling, and that’s all before you even start creaming any butter. Have some patience and you’ll be fine. You have to wait for the cupcakes or brownies to cool anyways. Believe me, it’s worth the extra effort.
Don’t forget about my Power of Pink Challenge! Make something PINK during the month of October to raise Breast Cancer Awareness and a chance to win a $100 donation to the charity of your choice.
One Year Ago: Banana Coconut Bread
Two Years Ago: Apple Crisp Pie and Turkey Veggie Burgers
Three Years Ago: Pizza Dough and Multi-Seed Crackerbread
Four Years Ago: Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies
Five Years Ago: Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Six Years Ago: The Cone Method and Steak and Salad
Raspberry Brownies
This recipe make a 9x13 pan of brownies. It can easily be cut in half and baked in an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan
Yield: 32 brownies
Ingredients:
For the Brownies
1 batch of my favorite brownies (or any other 9x13 batch of brownies), completely cooled
For the Frosting
24 oz fresh raspberries
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
7 cups powdered sugar
4-6 Tbsp heavy cream
Directions:
For the Brownies
Bake brownies according to recipe and allow to completely cool. I let mine cool overnight.
For the Frosting
In a small saucepan, gently heat the raspberries and mash with a potato masher. Strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove all of the mush and seeds, and put the raspberry juice back into the saucepan over medium heat, simmering. Reduce by approximately half, or until about 1/2 cup of reduced raspberry syrup. Pour into a cool heat-safe container, and allow to cool to room temperature.
In a mixer, cream the butter and half of the powdered sugar. It will take several minutes for the sugar to absorb the butter and look mealy. When it does, add the raspberry juice and beat slowly to incorporate. Next, add in the second half of the sugar and continue to mix on low. Eventually, the frosting will come together and look like frosting, but you don’t want it to be *too* stiff. Start by adding 4 Tbsp. heavy cream, and add more if the frosting is still too thick.
Brownie recipe from King Arthur Flour, Frosting recipe from pdx food love
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. 
loving the baileys idea! mmmmm
I use the same recipe (I think, I’ve had it for years; a standby. I think it was called “Chocolate Fudge Frosting”)
Best thing EVER to do? add a bit of mint extract – it’s very easily my most popular cake filling.. and my favourite icing to eat by the spoonful lol.
I haven’t found the perfect chocolate frosting yet, so I’ll definitely have to try this one!
i definitely, definitely have to try this soon. i can’t get enough of chocolate!
It’s funny about the no milk thing…I was making a new martini recipe that was super strong, so I thought cream would help it become drinkable – but I had no cream, but I did have Vanilla Caramel Coffeemate…it was great!
Ironically, I almost never have milk and always have Bailey’s. Go figure.
Sometimes you really do need a seriously dark chocolatey frosting. This looks absolutely ideal.
you really got into the food styling there — cute pic with the cupcake in the sprinkles.
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This sounds nice – I’ll have to try it one day! Jen, have you tried King Arthur Flour’s Supersimple Chocolate Frosting recipe? It is my favourite recipe (so far) for chocolate frosting – I’d definitely recommend it!
(Sheesh! deleted to fix a typo! Wish there was an edit function :))
Pegster – I have not tried the KA recipe. It looks similar to this chocolate frosting recipe which is delicious!
The think I love about this frosting is the stiffness and the fudgeness.
I like this frosting for when I want something quick. Otherwise, I like to use frosting that involves melted, good chocolate for those special occasions. YUM! I would gobble up your cupcakes in a second.
Great call on the Bailey’s – my mom would love that icing. I am going to try this next time I make cupcakes.
I would never think to sub bailey’s for milk. Brilliant. I love my chocolate desserts to be super chocolaty – this looks great!
LOVE the super pink sprinkles too. So pretty 😀
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m hosting a giveaway. I wonder if it would come handy in this baking project…
These look great!! I love your photos!! I’ve been searching for a good chocolate-y frosting and I think I might try this!!
Would you mind checking out my blog? 😀 http://ajscookingsecrets.blogspot.com/
I could have definitely used this recipe for my sourdough chocolate cake this week
http://gamereviewwiki.com/bikinibirthday/2010/06/21/day-158-binge-weekend/
i just made this frosting today to go inside some cupcakes using your cone method. and i topped with vanilla buttercream, at my hubby’s request.
let me just say this was so delicious i had to take my whitening strips out early so i could lick my fingers, and then the bowl. then my 15 month old attacked me to lick the spatula. we were all sugar high and happy before dinner.
my hubby said “every day i am happier i married you because of things like this”
Thanks for sharing this recipe!!!
Kris – I love hearing comments like that! Thanks for trusting my recipes enough to try on your hubby!
Mmm this looks fantastic, though the ingredients look similar to another delicious recipe I’ve used before that is pretty soft. I’m guessing it’s the butter temperature. Should it be room temperature here? Thanks!
You definitely want your butter at room temperature so it creams nicely.
I have the Bailey’s..lol but I’m out of cocoa powder. Have you ever tried subbing it with melted chocolate? And if so how much do you use?
Best frosting ever. Perfect taste, texture and color. It was divine. I will never use another chocolate frosting recipe ever again. Thank you very, very much! It is truly a gift. 🙂
Jen,
I am a person who has been cooking from the age of 5 ….lol now i have certin likes loves and disliks lol however i found a revepie i wanted to make and it called for a fudge type frosting…. knowing i didnt have one i liked for this so i started looking friday night and didnt come across your recepie until saturday morning so i got out my ingreadience.. but i didnt have Balies or white milk i had some Cream de Mint and Choc. Milk so i straied a tad from ur recepie …. i used 1/2 stick of butter, and to get 1/3 cup of liquid i used aprox 1/4 cup of Cream de Mint and the rest Choc. Milk. Plus the res of ur ingreadience …..omg this is the best dark choc fudge frosting ive ever had!!!! And i used the best dk. Cocoa i know of !!!!!! Thankyou thankyou THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a baker and for the life of me I can’t find a thick chocolate fudge frosting. Is this frosting thick? I don’t want anything too creamy, like ganache when you let it sit. Help please!
beantownbaker — February 4th, 2013 @ 9:45 pm
This frosting is definitely thick. You can see in the pictures that it held up nicely to piping. It’s not as creamy as a ganache.
Thank you for responding! 🙂 I see that some people use melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. Doesn’t it really matter?
beantownbaker — February 5th, 2013 @ 10:13 am
For this recipe, I always use cocoa powder.
If I make these the day before do I have to refrigerate them(since the recipe calls for milk)or can I leave them on the counter covered?
beantownbaker — October 30th, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
You can leave them on the counter. The milk in the frosting stabilizes so it won’t go bad. I’d put them in a covered container though.
Hi. Is the butter you use salted or unsalted?
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 11:01 am
I always use unsalted butter unless specified as salted butter.
This is absolutely THE BEST chocolate frosting recipe I have EVER tried. I used it to frost some homemade vanilla mint cupcakes and topped them with an Andes mint for my daughters sweet 16 party. I had complete strangers tell me I need to open up a bakery and sell nothing but those cupcakes! Thank you so much for posting this. It is truly amazing.
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
SO glad you enjoy this recipe! Nothing beats a great chocolate frosting.
I can’t wait to try this! I LOVE the flavor of the hersey’s dark choc frosting recipe but its so thin that i can’t use it for cupcakes, only for a cake. I even tried refrigeration overnight to see if that would thicken it up and it didn’t. so i can not wait try to this one for my cupcakes!
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:53 pm
I agree. The Hershey’s one is just too thin for cupcakes.
I made a variation on this recipe for my daughter’s birthday cake yesterday and it was fabulous!
I’m still trying to figure out how 6T butter is enough though–I ended up putting in two whole sticks of butter and adding in the milk after the first addition (I added it slowly) of powdered sugar/cocoa combo–it was so thick and dry that my mixer was making new, horrible noises and I was sure it was going to die! LOL