The Most DELICIOUS, Ultimate Chocolate Frosting!

by Aurelia Lambrechts | Gluten Free Recipes, Recipes

The Ultimate Chocolate Frosting Recipe

This Ultimate Chocolate Frosting is not a recipe that happened over night. I used to HATE frosting actually! Maybe you feel the same way about icky sweet buttercream as I do?

My childhood memories of frosting are completely grim. Conventional Chocolate Buttercream piped onto semi-dry sheet cakes with a star tip was a STAPLE at every single birthday party as a kid.

Oh and don’t forget the garnish of chocolate vermicelli sprinkles, glace cherries or the tiny rosettes of dulce de leche! Even though every birthday party had a themed cake, there was always one of these chocolate sheet cakes on standby in the background.

As fond as my memories are of childhood birthday parties, the chocolate sheet cakes are not included in that fondness.

That frosting was just too darn sweet. The overwhelming sweetness penetrated into your gills and made your mouth turn skew!

Every time I ate chocolate cake, I hoped this chocolate frosting might taste different, and every time the outcome was the same…

I ended up having one tiny bite, proceeded to SCRAPE OFF ALL THE CRAZY-SWEET FROSTING and ate the semi-dry cake on its own instead (which suddenly seemed a whole lot yummier after tasting that awful frosting!). Did anyone else also do this??

In the end I was so opposed to ANY kind of frosting.

I’d just never tasted a frosting that actually had FLAVOUR of its own. Not just sweet fat to make a dry cake seem less dry. I apologize for the clouds of criticism… I’m just so passionate about flavour 🙂

A Second Date with Frosting

My mother was writing Low Fat Low GI recipe books throughout my school years. The series is called “Eating for Sustained Energy”.

The carrot cake recipe is just fantastic! Naturally they had to take a road less traveled when it came to the frosting. Butter is not exactly “low fat” 😀

They also wanted a frosting with less sugar. Problem with buttercream is that you need to add a LOT of sugar to achieve the right consistency and something resembling flavour.

Thus, a smooth cottage cheese (which is even lower in fat than cream cheese), was the option they went for.

WAS

SOOOOO

GOOOOOD!!!!!!

Finally, a frosting that had a great flavour and didn’t make my head spin from sweetness! A frosting you wanted to eat, as is, with a spoon!

The frosting was often a bit temperamental though… If you mixed it too much, it would go runny in seconds. Even so, the flavour and different approach was a great lesson I would draw from in the future.

Ultimate Chocolate Frosting Development

When I started baking part-time in 2012, I kind of avoided frosting. I knew I wouldn’t use buttercream. EVER. And I was honestly too scared to make my mom’s frosting out of fear that it would go runny. I needed something pipe-able.

Ultimate Chocolate Frosting elevates cake to a whole new dimension of YUM! It goes with EVERY CAKE FLAVOUR known to man. You'll never want to eat buttercream again. #deliciousfrosting #creamcheesefrosting #lowsugarfrosting #chocolatefrosting

I realized that cream cheese on its own would be too solid and cheesy tasting, so adding whipped cream would make it lighter. Truly, I had never read about whipped-cream-cream-cheese-frosting before or heard about it or anything! It just seemed like a good idea.

The great thing about cream cheese is that it already has flavour and it’s softer than butter, so you can add WAY less sugar to achieve the right consistency and sweetness. Wonderful!

It worked out PERFECTLY. Easy to pipe, super yummy and it seriously goes with ANY cake.

At this point I was still using chocolate ganache as my chocolate frosting. Although I LOVE ganache, it is a bit intense and heavier – even if you whip it. I wanted something more mellow, but still very chocolate-y.

About 2 years later I was watching another episode of Unique Sweets (all my stories seem to involve this show! LOVE IT!). The crew was visiting The Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co in Seattle, Washington. It is a unique cupcake eatery that makes an INSANE amount of cupcake flavours. Like 150+ flavours! The frosting they use is Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC).

The one cupcake flavour on the episode was the “Tomato Soup Cupcake”, which is a flavour one of the owners had as a kid at every birthday party. Amazing! On top of this cupcake they put chocolate SMBC and it just looked divine.

At that moment I realized that I can easily turn my vanilla cream cheese frosting into a chocolate frosting by adding melted chocolate. I tried it and it was amazing.

Low Sugar Chocolate Frosting is so easy and TASTIER!! Photos by Alice Swan

So here is my super classified (until now) Philosophy of Yum Ultimate Chocolate Frosting recipe. I have made it 1000’s of times, refined it and perfected it in my 5 years of full time baking.

I guess if you wanted to be technically correct you could call it whipped-cream-chocolate-ganache-cream-cheese-frosting.

Reasons to Make This Ultimate Chocolate Frosting:

# It’s so flipping DELICIOUS!!! So delicious in fact that it makes you giggle, squirm and dance from the deliciousness.

# My Ultimate Chocolate Frosting contains a staggering 75% – 80% LESS SUGAR than any other frosting, but it is completely sufficiently sweet enough.

# It’s actually a whole lot quicker and easier to make than buttercream or traditional cream cheese frosting.

# You don’t need a stand mixer to make this chocolate frosting! A simple electric hand mixer is ideal.

# Because there is no butter in this frosting, it is also 55% lower in fat than any other conventional frosting. What a bargain!!

Let’s get started! My instructions are going to be rather thorough so that there’s little room for error. I really want you to experience the awesomeness of this ultimate chocolate frosting.

5.0 from 3 reviews

Ultimate Chocolate Frosting

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Prep time

7 mins

Total time

7 mins

Author: Philosophy of Yum

Serves: 15

Ingredients

30 g Whipping Cream (at least 33% fat) with ½ tsp Granulated Sugar
50 g Dark Chocolate (at least 65% cocoa solids), chopped
70 g Whipping Cream (at least 33% fat), ICE COLD
200 g Full Fat Cream Cheese (at least 25% fat), non-aerated, ICE COLD
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
65 g Pure Icing Sugar

Instructions

First make the chocolate ganache. Place chopped chocolate in a ceramic or glass bowl.
Place 30 g cream and ½ tsp sugar in a saucepan and heat till just simmering.
Add the hot cream to chopped dark chocolate. Stir well until fully combined and glossy. It's totally fine if the ganache splits a bit. Transfer to the fridge to cool down for at least 5 minutes.
Next make the frosting. Whip cold cream to stiff peaks with an electric hand mixer in a medium mixing bowl.
Beat in cold Cream Cheese till smooth. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat again till smooth and thickened. About 1 minute.
Beat in Vanilla and icing sugar. Leave to stand for 2 minutes in the fridge so that sugar can melt into the cream cheese.
Beat again till smooth and thick – about 1 minute. The frosting will be a bit runny at first, but just keep your beaters in one spot and keep beating on max speed and it will thicken up. You're essentially re-whipping the cream inside the frosting.
Beat in the cooled chocolate ganache till the frosting is uniform in colour. If you want your frosting even more chocolatey, go ahead and beat in some cocoa powder.
If I'm using the frosting for layer cakes I use it as it is. Let each layer of frosting chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours before adding another cake layer on top. This frosting isn't ideal for stacking more than 2 layers of cake.
If I'm using this chocolate frosting for cupcakes I make sure that it's at the perfect consistency first before I start piping it. Signs of my perfect consistency: when you tap the side of the bowl, the frosting jiggles a tiny bit. When you scoop up a spoon, it takes about 2,5 - 3 seconds to drop back into the bowl.
Stir the chocolate frosting with a spoon to smooth out any air bubbles before transferring to a piping bag or smoothing onto a layer cake.

Notes

This batch of frosting is enough for about 12 Cupcakes

I hope you’ll try out my Ultimate Chocolate Frosting Recipe! It’s a perfect match with my Banana & Chocolate Cupcakes, not to mention my Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes.

If you give this recipe a go, tag me on facebook, twitter or instagram #philosophyofyum because I would LOVE to see!

Next time I’ll be sharing a recipe to go with this frosting… a VERY special recipe since it is Philosophy of Yum Blog’s 1 year birthday! 😀

Chat soon!

Aurelia 🙂

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Hi! I’m Aurelia 🙂

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Do you dream of starting a home bakery, but then thoughts of self-doubt like these start flooding your mind… “People aren’t going to think my baking is worth it. All the other bakers are better than me. I’m not good enough.” Truth is pretty much ALL home bakers get these thoughts! You’re not alone! In this post you’ll learn how to beat self doubt so you can be free to pursue your baking business goals. Click through to get the tips now… #homebaking #selfdoubt #homebakery #bakingbusiness #baking

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Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Muffins

by Aurelia Lambrechts | Recipes

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffins are really my all-time favourite muffins – BY FAR! They are absolutely sensational.

No really, you don’t understand… they are sensational!

Since you guys have been enjoying all my muffin recipes (Pear, Apple & Blueberry, Ultimate Bran, Cranberry & Coconut) so much, I thought I should share this one as well 🙂

The Story:

If you’ve read my About page, you will know that I have a thing for Butternut Squash. I would live on it alone if I could. Apparently our bodies need protein as well. Bummer. One of my favourite flavour combos with butternut, is cheese! Feta, cream cheese, mozzarella, you name it.

I guess it’s the salty combined with the sweet, but it’s also so much more than that… They are just made for each other.

Back when I first started out baking for Coffee Shops, I baked for a place called Field Office. The manager and I were constantly strategizing and bouncing flavour ideas back and forth for different muffins and cupcakes. I started searching online for more ideas and found a post on “Top 20 muffin flavours” or something like that.

Most of them looked quite nice, but nothing grabbed me… Until the words “Pumpkin” and “Cream Cheese” graced my screen. I made my own version of this recipe using butternut squash (obviously) and changing the cream cheese filling, so that it resembles cheesecake.

The crunchy, salted butter pecan crumble is the ultimate crown, providing a buttery, nutty crunch to the whole experience!

These Pumpkin & Cream Cheese muffins were flying off the shelves at Field Office. Everyone loved them! The manager & I were so elated that we had found the Nemo of the muffin world!

Recipe Introduction:

How you cook the butternut will completely determine the quality of your muffins. You don’t want to boil it to death. Make sure you keep it on a medium heat and once it is soft, remove it from the heat.

The butternut also shouldn’t be submerged in water. Simply pour about 5 mm of water in the bottom of the pot so that you are essentially steaming it. If you prefer steaming it altogether, that is also fine. I don’t have a steamer, so I prefer using a small pot on a stove. Also add 1/2 tsp salt when cooking the butternut.

The Cream Cheese filling does need to be made in advance and frozen for at least 4 hours. Using it straight away encourages the batter to mix with it which leaves the amazing cream cheese center a bit sparse and not so amazing.

Most bakers insist on using unsalted butter in their cakes and I totally get that. This is a muffin though and salted butter makes the crumble topping ridiculously good!

A moist, tender, warmly spiced pumpkin muffin with a slightly caramelized cream cheese center and a crown of pecan crumble on top – it is the PERFECT incentive to wake up in the morning!

5.0 from 1 reviews

Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Muffins

Save Print

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

Author: Philosophy of Yum

Serves: 10

Ingredients

FOR THE FILLING:

60 g Whipping Cream
140 g Cream Cheese
30 g Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

FOR THE CRUMBLE:

55 g Cake Flour
35 g Granulated Sugar
15 g Pecans, roughly chopped
⅓ tsp Ground Cinnamon
30 g Salted Butter

FOR THE MUFFINS:

205 g Cake Flour
6 g Baking Powder
⅓ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
½ Tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon ground ginger, ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves)
1 tsp Salt
80 g Eggs
130 g Granulated Sugar
230 g Cooked/Steamed Butternut (250 g raw), mashed up. Cook the butternut as described in the Recipe Introduction.
¼ cup Water, room temperature
½ cup Canola Oil
½ Tbsp Vanilla Extract

Instructions

FOR THE FILLING:

Make the Cream Cheese Filling at least 4 hours before you plan on making the actual muffins. It will need time to freeze solid. This can be done up to 2 weeks in advance if desired.
Whip cream to stiff peaks. Beat in the cream cheese till smooth. Beat in the sugar and vanilla. Allow to stand for 5 minutes so that the sugar can melt. Beat again till smooth. Place in freezer for at least 4 hours.

FOR THE CRUMBLE:

To make the pecan crumble, melt the butter in a heat proof bowl.
Add in the flour, sugar and cinnamon. Stir with a fork to combine thoroughly. There will be some clumps - this is exactly what you want. Stir in the pecans.
Preheat oven to 180˚C/350˚F. Line a standard muffin tin with 10 paper liners; set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt in a large bowl. Set aside. At this point also remove your frozen cream cheese mixture from the freezer – this will make it easier to scoop out when the time comes.

FOR THE MUFFINS:

Beat together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl for 1 minute, till pale and fluffy. Add in the vanilla, water, butternut and oil. Whisk to combine. From here on work with a handheld balloon whisk.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and whisk to combine well.
Fill your liners about halfway full and keep the rest of the batter for later.
Using a sturdy spoon or ice cream scoop, scoop 23 g of the cream cheese mixture into each case. 23 g is really the ideal amount. More will make it spill over into the oven and less is too sad.
Divide the rest of your batter between the 10 muffins. Be sure to cover all the cream cheese poking out.
Spoon the pecan crumble on top of each muffin. Use all of it. Be sure to spread it out so that all the batter is covered.
Bake at 180˚C/350˚F in the center of your oven for 40 minutes on the regular bake setting. Do not use the convection or thermo-fan setting. TURN THE TIN EVERY 10 MINUTES for a perfectly even bake. Place a large roasting tray underneath the muffins just in case any drippings of cream cheese cook out.
Allow these boys (because they are definitely not girls) to cool for at least 40 minutes before eating. The cream cheese filling gets piping hot in the cooking process.
Eat and enjoy!

These sublime Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffins age exceptionally well… They actually get better, believe it or not. I prefer not to eat them straight out of the oven.

It’s like the spices need time to develop or something? Like a curry. Now this is totally up to you, but I make my muffins the day before and then just pop them in the oven for 5-10 minutes to warm through again before serving.