The Perfect Chocolate Buttercream Icing Recipe (2024)

By Emily Leary. Last updated Aug 23, 2022. Green links are Amazon links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

When you make chocolate buttercream, you'll usually have two options for the buttercream: cocoa or melted chocolate. For my favourite, most intense chocolate buttercream icing recipe, I use both!

If you love making cupcakes, you'll know that the beauty of them is that the batter takes minutes to whip up and once they're cooked and cooled, you have 12 little blank canvases to go crazy with.

Over years of recipe testing, writing and demonstrating, I've probably made a metric ton of buttercream icing, and I love to tweak it to perfectly match the flavours of the cupcakes.

When I want a really intensely chocolatey hit to pipe onto my cakes, I go with the ultimate killer combo: slightly salted butter, icing sugar, vanilla, cocoa AND melted dark chocolate. It works SO well and really gives the buttercream a deep flavour.

In the recipe below, complete with step-by-step photos, I'll also show you how to get the buttercream really light and creamy. It starts by melting the dark chocolate and setting aside. This is because you need it to be cool when it goes into the frosting.

You'll then whip the butter by itself! I know, it seems excessive, but it really works and gets it light and creamy before you sift in the icing sugar and cocoa, followed by a dash of vanilla and a splash of hot water.

The next crucial step is to whisk the chocolate buttercream icing for a full 5 minutes to get it really pale and increased in volume. You can then add the cooled melted chocolate and give everything a final whisk.

I really think you're going to adore this chocolate buttercream icing recipe. It not only tastes intensely chocolatey, it also pipes beautifully smoothly from a large star nozzle and sets just firm enough to hold its shape when bitten without being sloppy or drying out.

Here's the full recipe.

Instructions

Melt the dark chocolate and set aside to cool.

Put the butter in a large mixing bowl.

Beat with an electric whisk until really pale and aerated.

Sift in the icing sugar and cocoa powder, then add 1 tbsp of hot water and 1 tbsp vanilla.

Mix on a low speed with your electric whisk until everything is combined.

You can then turn your beaters up to full speed and beat until light and smooth. It will take at least 4-5 minutes.

Add the cooled melted dark chocolate. It's important that it's well cooled or it will melt the frosting.

Whisk until well combined and smooth.

Transfer your buttercream into the piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and twist.

You'll have enough to pipe the frosting on top of the 12 cupcakes in very generous rising swirls, or enough for 24 cupcakes with more modest frosting.

Bonus cake decorating tips!

1. You can frost a perfect rose on top of a cake.Just start from the middle and ice outwards, keeping it as flat as possible.
2. To stop sugar paste from sticking to your work surface, dust with cornflour, not icing sugar. Icing sugar leaves unsightly white streaks and dries the sugar paste out, causing cracks, whereas cornflour dissolves invisibly back into the icing.
3. Water with a tiny bit of icing sugar in it makes perfectly good glue.This might be the last time you pay for a bottle of sugarcraft glue!
4. A bit of screwed up foil can make the centre of a sugar paste flower look far more realistic.Once you’ve cut out your little flower and put a little ball of contrasting icing in the centre, just squish some screwed up foil against the middle a few times and you’ll get a lovely, dimpled effect.
5. Use salted butter in butter icing, rather than unsalted, because it tastes better and lasts longer. I try to keep our salt intake low, but slightly salted butter brings out the sweetness in buttercream.

Print this chocolate buttercream icing recipe

Pin this chocolate buttercream icing recipe

More buttercream and frosting recipes to try

Have you got my book?

'This is a great kids cookery book. Emily is a star' - Simon Rimmer

'The book I'd like to force into any mother's kitchen' - Prue Leith

"A fab book with a plan." - Jane Devonshire, 2016 Masterchef UK winner

'Emily has managed to combine her mummy knowledge and passion for food to make a truly helpful and brilliant cookbook' - Priya Tew, RD, BSc (Hons), Msc

Get Your Kids to Eat Anything is an achievable 'how to' for parents in the battle to overcome picky eating and 'make new the norm'. Emily Leary's unique 5-phase programme looks at the issue of 'fussy eating' in a holistic way that links imagination with food, and which situates parents alongside - not in opposition to - their children.

Grab your copy!

.