chocolate icing

This recipe comes from Fran Bigelow's excellent book, Pure Chocolate.

Although it is labeled as dark chocolate truffle filling, I use this simple recipe as a chocolate icing for cakes. I never liked cake icing before, but now I prefer this to most of the cakes! The only downside is that, at serving time, this icing often pulls away from the cake (doesn't stick well), so perhaps that's why she uses it as a filling.

1. finely chop 9 ounces of dark chocolate (I typically use half of Trader Joe's "Pound Plus" Belgian Dark Chocolate bar at 56%)


2. heat 1 cup heavy cream until begins to boil (I take it off at first bubbles, so it isn't yet "boiling")


3. remove from heat, add chocolate from (1) and stir until melted together and smooth (perhaps 2 minutes)


4. let sit at room temperature and every 20-30 minutes gently fold with a spatula until thickens to consistency of soft butter (recipe says 4 hours, but it usually takes 3 for me)