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This velvety smooth chocolate icing recipe is perfect for topping your favorite cakes, cookies, and more. It’s indulgent and delicious!
Similar to our Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe, this chocolate icing recipe is perfect for topping your favorite treats, especially Easy Chocolate Cake and Hershey’s Chocolate Cake!
The Chocolate Icing We Love Most
We really enjoy spreading this chocolate icing recipe on our Hershey’s Chocolate Cake, but it can be used on your favorite chocolate cake recipe, or any dessert that needs icing.
Here’s what we love most about it:
- Rich. It is smooth, decadent, and perfectly delicious!
- Simple. Really all you need to do is whip the ingredients together.
- Homemade. It’s so much better than store-bought frosting and worth the tiny bit of extra effort!
I love to slather it on my favorite cakes, add some sprinkles, and make yummy birthday cakes when celebrating those chocolate lovers!
Ingredients
- melted butter – Be sure to use unsalted butter and not margarine or shortening.
- Hershey’s cocoa powder – Hershey’s unsweetened baking cocoa powder comes in many different varieties such as 100% cacao, natural cocoa, or special dark which is a blend of natural and dutch-process. You can use any one of these to make this chocolate icing.
- powdered sugar
- half and half – or whole milk
- vanilla extract – I added vanilla extract to help make the chocolate flavoring sing but you can use a different flavoring such as almond extract or peppermint extract.
Just Combine!
This chocolate icing recipe is delicious and so simple!
- COMBINE. Beat together melted butter, cocoa, powdered sugar, and half and half until it is a spreading consistency. Stir in vanilla, then frost the cooled cake, cupcakes, etc.
Serving Suggestions
Use this easy chocolate icing recipe on your favorite desserts that pair with chocolate. Here are some of our favorites:
Icing vs Frosting
The two terms are often used interchangeably because they are so similar, yet they have differences, and those differences can help you determine when to use them.
- Icing is a combination of powdered sugar and liquid such as milk, melted butter, or juice. The consistency is thick enough to coat a cake or cookie, but thin enough to spread it on in a smooth layer. The texture is thicker than a glaze, but not as thick as frosting.
- Frosting such as cream cheese frosting or buttercream frosting is made by creaming butter until fluffy and adding powdered sugar, a bit of milk, and flavoring. It has a significantly thicker texture than icing.
Recipe Tips
- Sift. Both the confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder can develop hard little clumps so for the smoothest texture sift them before using in the chocolate icing recipe for cake.
- How to thicken the Icing: If you’d like a thicker homemade chocolate icing recipe, especially if you want to try some piping techniques, you can thicken the icing in a couple of ways:
- Butter. Instead of melting it use a stick of butter that has become very soft at room temperature.
- Sugar. Add more powdered sugar.
Storing Tips
STORE. This recipe for chocolate icing can be stored in an airtight container or jar in the refrigerator or freezer. For best results use refrigerated icing within 7-10 days or frozen icing within 4-6 weeks. Allow time to thaw before using.
For more Frosting and Icing, try:
Chocolate Icing Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter melted
- ⅔ cup Hershey's cocoa
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ⅓ cup half and half
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Beat together melted butter, cocoa, powdered sugar, and half and half until it is a spreading consistency.
- Stir in vanilla, then frost the cooled cake, cupcakes, etc.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
