Chocolate Frosting Recipe #1

My wife found me a new stack of old recipe books a few weeks ago. She’s been going through them looking for ideas, and the first one she came up with is out of the Ohio State Grange Cook Book, Eleventh Edition, 1949.

I like all the oddball recipes she’s finding. But what really tickles my funny bone is every ten minutes or so when she asks, “What the hell is a quick oven? And ‘Bake in two layers’ … at what temperature and for how long?!”

Welcome to my world, sweetie! 😀

So here’s our first entry from this new batch.

It’s almost more of a ganache, so I had a little trouble spreading it on. But that’s entirely my fault. Two or three more rounds of practice and I’m sure I could use this one just fine.

Unless you’re really confident in your frosting skills though, I’d suggest you not use this one for the first time if you want the cake to look perfect.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons softened butter
1 whole egg (see note below)
¼ teaspoon salt
1 square melted chocolate (see note below)
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
cream as necessary

Directions

Wait until your cake has cooled before making this frosting. It will set up and start getting a crust on it fairly quickly, so you want to start spreading it as soon as it’s mixed.

Combine the egg, butter, chocolate and salt.

The butter and chocolate should both be warm enough to press a fork through without any resistance. You can warm them up in the microwave, just be very careful that you don’t liquefy the butter or scorch the chocolate.

ALTERNATIVES:

In place of the whole egg you can use two yolks.
In place of the baking chocolate you can use 3 tablespoons cocoa powder and 1 more tablespoon softened butter.

HEALTH NOTE: The egg(s) in this recipe won’t be cooked. If you have medical issues or just don’t like the idea of raw eggs, try substituting a 2-inch piece of banana for the egg. The flavor will barely be noticeable.

Beat the ingredients together until smooth.

Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth again.

You want the frosting to be spreadable but not runny. Add cream or milk a teaspoon at a time and mixing it in until you get to the right consistency.

I added about a tablespoon to start, and that was a bit much. I was able to pour it on like a ganache, then spread it on the sides as it thickened up. Yes, it was thickening up before it flowed all the way down to the plate. I told you to wait until the cake was cooled before making this recipe.