The Slow-Cooked Sentence

A story written with frosting

Rachael Conlin Levy
A 2-year-old’s cake.

My daughter, Chaja, celebrated her birthday Thursday and frosted her 11th cake. When she was small she smeared “raspberry-fluff icing on an angel-surprise cake” a la “Bunny Cakes.” Now that she’s crowing that she has just two more years left before she’s a teen-ager, she asked for a yellow cake with chocolate frosting as dangerously dark and delicious as the vampires in “Twilight.”

Chaja's birthday cake
The same girl, nine years later.

Here’s the to-die-for recipe:

Foolproof Chocolate Frosting
adapted from Cook’s Illustrated March-April 2008 issue

20 tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (I used Hershey’s cocoa)
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 ounces chocolate, melted and cooled (I used milk chocolate)

Cook’s Illustrated recommended mixing the frosting in a food processor, but I didn’t read the recipe ahead of time, and poured everything into my mixer. Didn’t make a difference in the outcome.

Process butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt until smooth, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Add corn syrup and vanilla and process until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Scrapes sides of bowl, then add chocolate and pulse until smooth and creamy, 10 to 15 seconds.

Sharing the bowl
Licking the bowl with her brothers. All photos by Dance in the Kitchen.


3 responses to “A story written with frosting”

  1. anno says:

    Looks like that frosting was a success! I've wondered about that recipe; sounds like it is worth a try… Hope you all had a wonderful birthday celebration!

  2. Rachael Levy says:

    Thank you! The day was a success in many ways.

  3. kyndale says:

    What a fun tradition!

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