Easy Chocolate Frosting
Are you looking for an easy chocolate frosting for your favorite desserts? You’re going to love this one made with just five simple ingredients! It’s sweet, creamy, and full of lots of milk chocolate flavor!
Ingredients
Are you ready to get mixing? First, you need to gather everything together. Here is a look at the highlights but be sure to check the recipe card for the full list and quantities.
- Milk Chocolate Bar: I prefer using Hershey’s milk chocolate. You can use other brands but I highly recommend using a quality brand of chocolate for the best results.
- Butter: Makes the chocolate frosting creamy and buttery.
- Powdered Sugar: Also called icing sugar because it’s perfect for making icing and frosting. It dissolves much easier so that it mixes with the other ingredients and results in creamy smooth texture.
- Heavy Whipping Cream: Helps the other ingredients mix together and achieve the right texture for spreading. I like to use heavy whipping cream because it makes this chocolate buttercream frosting thicker. However, if you don’t have heavy whipping cream in your fridge you can use milk instead.
- Vanilla: A hint of warmth and natural sweetness. Use pure vanilla for the best flavor.
How To Make Chocolate Frosting
Making chocolate frosting takes just minutes using a hand mixer or stand mixer. Here’s a look at the main steps!
- Heat. The milk chocolate candy bar in the microwave in a small bowl. Use 30-second intervals and stir after each one. Repeat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Then, set it aside and allow the chocolate to cool.
- Beat. The butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy. You will need to stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl during mixing.
- Add. The heavy whipping cream and vanilla extract to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
- Fold. In the milk chocolate until it’s fully mixed into the frosting.
Now your chocolate frosting is ready to use. Frost cupcakes, cakes, or cookies using a piping bag or knife.
Tips & Variations
- Use Softened Butter. It’s the secret to a creamy and fluffy frosting.
- Add Different Flavors. You can easily alter the flavor of this chocolate buttercream frosting by swapping out some of all of the vanilla with other extracts. Coconut, almond, and orange are just a few favorites that work great with chocolate.
- Chocolate. You can swap the milk chocolate for other varieties of chocolate. For a less sweet, more intense chocolate flavor, dark chocolate works great.
- Melt the Chocolate Slowly. When microwaving chocolate, heat for only a short amount of time and stir between each cycle. This way you don’t end up scorching your chocolate.
- Add Some Sprinkles After Frosting! Because everything is always better with sprinkles.
Serving Suggestions
I make this chocolate frosting to put on all my favorite chocolate desserts. And for all my vanilla lovers, try my vanilla buttercream frosting and funfetti cake or vanilla cupcakes.
These Frosted Peanut Butter Bars are my favorite…they’re like the ones I used to LOVE in grade school at lunchtime. They’re the perfect way to use this chocolate buttercream frosting.
And if you’re looking for cut-out cookie frosting, check out my best sugar cookie frosting.
Recipe FAQ
You want it to be thick so that it stays in place on top of your cupcakes and cakes but if you feel it’s too thick you can simply add a bit more heavy cream or milk to thin it out a bit.
If after mixing, you find the frosting is too thin, you can add a little extra powdered sugar?
No, unfortunately in this recipe you can’t as it will change the consistency since it’s a powder while the chocolate is a liquid.
Storing
- Store. Store leftover or prepared frosting in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week. When you’re ready to use it, simply let it sit at room temperature to soften up a bit.
More Dessert Recipes
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Easy Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 bar Hershey's Milk Chocolate candy bar*, 4.4 ounces
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened, 2 sticks
- 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Place milk chocolate candy bar into small bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds intervals, stirring after each interval until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside and allow to cool.
- Using an electric or stand mixer, cream together butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add heavy whipping cream and vanilla extract, and mix until combined. Fold in milk chocolate until fully incorporated into frosting.
- Frost cupcakes, cakes, or cookies using a piping bag or knife.
Notes
- Chocolate Bars: I bought the XL Hershey’s Milk Chocolate candy bar which is 4.4 ounces but if you can’t find the XL Hershey’s Milk Chocolate candy bar you can buy 4 (1.55 oz.) regular sized Hershey’s Milk Chocolate candy bars.
- This recipe yields about 2 1/2 cups of frosting.
- Use Softened Butter. It’s the secret to a creamy and fluffy frosting.
- Add Some Sprinkles After Frosting! Because everything is always better with sprinkles.
- Melt the Chocolate Slowly. When microwaving chocolate, heat for only a short amount of time and stir between each cycle. This way you don’t end up scorching your chocolate.
- Chocolate. You can swap the milk chocolate for other varieties of chocolate. For a less sweet, more intense chocolate flavor, dark chocolate works great.
- Add Different Flavors. You can easily alter the flavor of this chocolate buttercream frosting by swapping out some of all of the vanilla with other extracts. Coconut, almond, and orange are just a few favorites that work great with chocolate.
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Me and my sweetheart both found this icing too sugary sweet, so I added in 1.5 bars of melted Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate along with a tablespoon of heavy cream and that mellowed out the flavour more to our liking. The end result had perfect texture and was easy to work with. I’d make this again with my added hack.
This chocolate frosting was easy to make and so delicious. Hard to save enough to frost my cupcakes.
This couldn’t look any more perfect!
you had me at chocolate! I bake a lot for my family and Im always on the lookout for a good frosting recipe! I will be using this when i make cupcakes with my daughters this weekend!
This is a staple recipe I’ll use over and over!
This recipe is perfect for a classic yellow cake!
This looks AMAZING! Can use for so many different recipes! Yum!
All of a sudden, I want to frost EVERYTHING! I love this!
I’ve been looking for a delicious chocolate buttercream for ages. This is it!!! OMG it’s the best ever!!! I frosted 24 cupcakes with more than enough icing!! ThAnk you!!