The search for your favorite chocolate frosting recipe is now over!  This is far and away the best chocolate frosting I have ever eaten.   

Difficulty:  Easy

Source:  as with so many recipes, my mom

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

3 ounces melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate*

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon cognac

3 tablespoons milk

*The most important (and easiest to botch) part of this recipe is melting the chocolate without cooking/burning it.  If when you mix the chocolate into the mixture, you have tiny chocolate pieces all throughout, you overheated the chocolate.  The frosting will still taste pretty good.  It will just not be homogeneous and won’t taste as great as it would have tasted.

In mixer bowl, blend sugar, butter, and vanilla on low speed.  Then add melted chocolate and cognac.  Gradually add milk.  Beat on high speed until smooth and fluffy.  The frosting gets lighter colored when it is fluffy enough.

The Story:  Our family refers to this as “Don’s First Birthday Frosting,” since that was the first time my mom used this recipe.  Don is the dad of the 2 year old whose birthday cake was the train cake, so we’ve been using this frosting recipe for quite a long time.  When a friend of mine tried this frosting (and learned the name of it), she said, “Tell Don I’m SO thankful he was born!”

This pic is of my godson’s third birthday cake.  So far each year I’ve changed the cake shape but never the frosting!