Best Frosting Ever

I keep a big binder full of magazine clippings at the ready for just the right time.  Sometimes, this may mean they sit in that binder for years, but when they finally get made it’s worth the wait.

This was one of those recipes.

Clipped from a who-knows-when edition of Martha Stewart Living, this frosting is the match to a chocolate chip cake.  The cake was excellent as well, but this frosting, which uses melted milk chocolate and sour cream, was definitely the recipe to remember and is now my go-to choice for chocolate icing.

It has a smooth creamy texture, almost like an Italian Meringue Buttercream, but it is way easier to make.  It definitely doesn’t have that crunchy sugary-sweet my-teeth-hurt taste to it like a regular buttercream and it’s almost salty – I suppose from the sour cream.  I recently made a recipe like this and substituted the sour cream for yoghurt.  So although I haven’t tested out the theory in this recipe, I think you could probably sub yoghurt in.  I’d go for higher fat.  As it is, I used 14% sour cream in this one.

I also refrigerated this frosting for use the next day.  It was a hard block after a night in the fridge, so you really have to let it come up to room temperature and beat it pretty long to get it back to a decent texture.  I unfortunately didn’t have the time so you can see a slight difference in texture from the photo of the frosting on the beaters to the photo of the frosting on the cupcake.  Regardless, everyone at my son’s daycare raved about the frosting and it still tasted great to me.

Make this frosting.  We even served ourselves some in a bowl.  It’s that good.