Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Recipe: best chocolate buttercream frosting

Oh my, I’ve been trying to get into this space for days now. I compose at least two posts a day in my head, about random thoughts, recipes, and stories I want to share. Getting them onto the screen is whole other story. Some how the days keep siphoning into the next one.

Yesterday we celebrated Michael’s birthday. He would’ve been 58 years old. Honestly, I can’t even wrap me head around that number. What would 58 look like on him? How is 58 supposed to look on anyone? What will I look like when I’m 58? Questions, always questions, rarely the right answers, if any at all.

There’s no moving forward, only moving through grief.

I was doing something at the stove, for the life of me I can’t remember what it was, but in thinking about his age, I thought about my own, and what those looked like parallel—my 44 to his 58. They sound so disparate, and yet aside from the puppy-like feeling I had with him, our ages never really came into play.

Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | In Jennie's Kitchen

Making his favorite cake was the best gift I could give myself for his birthday.

He truly kept me feeling young, excited about the future because I could glimpse it from his present day. I realize that sounds most peculiar, and maybe I shouldn’t write in such a stream of conscious sort of way, but here I am, and that is what I feel like doing here at the moment.

Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | In Jennie's Kitchen

The weather graced us with a snow day which meant me and the girls got to hang around in our jammies all day long. A decadent treat, indeed. We began watching The Crown a week or so ago, and had a mini-marathon in between me cooking and baking Mikey’s birthday cake.

Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | In Jennie's Kitchen

My old school Brooklyn roots shine in this cake— his favorite one, the same cake I made him every year, except for his 50th birthday. It’s a Golden Vanilla Cake (basically this recipe, baked in 6-inch round pans), the best chocolate buttercream frosting in the center and also used as a crumb coat, then finished with a glaze of chocolate ganache. Yes, it’s as perfect as it sounds.

Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | In Jennie's Kitchen

Remember I mentioned creating a Homemade Devil’s Food Cake Mix? That recipe hasn’t been shared yet, but I’ve also begun working on a Golden Vanilla Cake Mix, too. So more to come on both those fronts. In the meantime, I wanted to share my recipe what I consider the best chocolate buttercream frosting.

Buttercream tends to get a bad rap for being too sweet, but it doesn’t have to be. While you do need to use a certain amount of confectioners’ sugar to balance out the amount of butter, it doesn’t need to make your teeth feel like they’re going to fall out. I use just enough to strike that balance, and some cream gets tipped in at the end to help create a luscious, creamy, perfectly spreadable frosting.

Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | In Jennie's Kitchen

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8 Comments

  • Midge

    As always a thought provoking post with a wonderful recipe. What a great thing on a snowy Friday.

    One question when are you going to post the one bowl chocolate cake recipe that you say is the best ever? Anxiously awaiting recipe.

    Thanks Jenny, you make frosting, I made 72 jars of Seville marmalade this week!

    Happy snowy Friday – Midge, Ontario, Canada

  • Renee

    Vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream is my favorite! Can you share that ganache recipe? Somehow I can only imagine a ganache that’s too drippy to spread on the sides of a cake… But this sounds amazing!

  • Ela

    I’m confused, how much butter did you use, 1 stick or 224 grams? And is it salted or unsalted? Thanks.

  • Jennie

    Hi Ela,

    It’s one stick (112 grams). Salted or unsalted is fine. I’ve made it with both, and don’t find the salted butter to make that significant a difference (unless, we’re talking about high-quality, salted European butter, which I wouldn’t use for this recipe).

    Jennie