Today is Mrs. Magill’s birthday. Since I’m working at home today, I thought I’d make her a cake. Her favorite: boxed Yellow cake with canned frosting. I went to the cupboard to get the mix and canned frosting, and discovered that it’s been a bit longer than I had thought since we’d bought frosting… at least since she’d started dieting, as the only frosting we had expired last year.
I figure that botulism would not be the best birthday gift… ever.
“Wait!” I said to myself, “she likes cup cakes with granache on them.” I looked in the fridge and saw no heavy cream. We just have half & half. Can I make granache out of half & half? (hint: she does not like buttercream frosting.)
I’ve thought that maybe I could use the half & half and butter to increase the fat content. Am I fooling myself?
Search me, but I thought that canned frosting was buttercream.
I think that just melting chocolate and butter together is a better idea than using half-and-half. Moisture can make chocoalte seize up into a stiff, unusable mass. You may need to refrigerate the chocolate-butter mixture to get it to firm up, but it does. I make a couple of Christmas cookies that do it this way (2-3 times as much chocolate as butter by weight).
Or, use Google to research various cooked icings, like Italian meringue, Swiss meringue, seafoam icing, and The Pioneer Woman’s “best icing I’ve ever tasted”. They’re all variations on buttercream in my book, but involve more work and many people think they taste better.
At home I have a recipe that’s basically chocolate chips and some butter and I think a little milk, it’s a poured frosting that sets like fudge. Unfortunately I cannot get at it until tonight. It’s in “The Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor” as the topping for a cake that has cherry pie filling stirred in – if anyone can look it up for me.
I have The Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor right here, Hello Again. There’s Chocolate Cherry Chip Cupcakes with Martha’s Chocolate Icing; you put cake mix, cherry pie filling, eggs and almond extract in a bowl, blend, and fold in chocolate chips. Does that sound like the recipe?
When my Mom made icing, it was powdered sugar + cocoa powder + a splash of hot coffee to melt it into a stiff paste, then stir in enough water to make it spreadable. Milk can be used instead of water.
I don’t think either of us ever used measurements, but the powdered sugar to cocoa ratio was somewhere around 4:1. Then taste to see if you want to add more of one or the other.
A dash of salt might not hurt. If the original of the recipe had had it, Mom would have omitted it because Salt Is Evil.
You can’t frost the sides of a cake with this. You can only do the top and let some dribble down the sides.
This book has a really easy recipe for chocolate frosting, which I just made for my husband’s birthday cake. Maus, if you have powdered sugar and cocoa at home, you can make it:
Just put the cocoa powder in a large bowl and pour the boiling water on it. Stir it up until combined, then add the butter and blend with a mixer, then add the sugar and vanilla. Beat it until it looks like frosting, and add a bit more water if it seems too thick.
Place cream in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring. Meanwhile, place the chopped chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Remove the cream from the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Stir with a wooden spoon until the chocolate is melted, and stir in liqueur if desired.
To use as a glaze, let stand 10 minutes before spooning it over a cooled cake.
The specific frosting recipe (Martha’s Chocolate Icing) that goes with the cake with the cherry pie filling recipe:
1 cup granulated sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Place the sugar, butter, and milk in a medium-size saucepan over medium-high heat. stir until the mixture comes to a boil, 3 to 4 minutes. Still stirring, let the mixture boil until the sugar dissolves, 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat.
Stir in the chocolate chips, and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate is melted.
Spread the icing over the cooked cake or cupcakes of your choice.
YES! Martha’s Chocolate Icing!! (I thought the choco-cherry cupcakes were just ai’ight, dog, but the Icing is a go-to for me). You’re my hero!!
Just remember:
Immediately pour or spread while warm onto cake - will crystalize and “crack” if you try to shift it when cooled.
Recipe makes enough to cover the top and drip down the sides with some help from a spoon - but it is not really spreadable. It is also not enough for the middle layer of a layer cake - make double for if you want to frost 2 layers.
Standard ganache is made with chocolate, cream and often a little butter. There are a zillion recipes online. Here’s a nice page. Half-and-half will work fine. Use a little less than the cream called for since is more liquidy. It’s easier to make than buttercream. You just boil the cream (and butter if you’re using it) and then stir in the chocolate chunks. Done.
Thank you, everyone for your help. I know how to make granache; I just wasn’t sure whether half & half would work, since every recipe I’d ever used called for heavy cream.
As it turned out, my Mother-in-law was coming over, so I’d asked her to pick up some canned frosting. No, I couldn’t hit the store myself…
Mrs. Magill got her boxed yellow cake and canned frosting birthday cake, and she was happy.
