Four Nights A Week

Can being a chocoholic be genetic? There is a long line of family members for whom a birthday cake isn’t a celebration unless it includes chocolate in some way, shape, or form. This was especially true of my Dad. With the exception of the one year in which he requested a pineapple upside-down cake for his birthday, July 9 was reserved for chocolate cake – the more fudge-y the better.

This year, which would have been Dad’s 106th birthday, I made a celebration cake in his memory. Using my Mom’s “best fudge cake” recipe (see future posts for the cake) as the base, I topped things off with Mom’s “Sarah’s Special Cocoa Frosting”. The recipe that follows comes from Mom’s recipe cards, a collection of family favorites including this delicious frosting for the chocolate lovers in my family. I made a few tweaks in that we don’t use margarine and in place of “strong coffee”, I used about 15 g of freshly (and finely) ground espresso beans.

Sarah’s Special Cocoa Frosting

Ingredients

• 1 stick margarine (or 2 Tbsp more) (I used butter, and only the 1 stick of 8 Tbsp)
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 2-2/3 cup confectioner sugar – don’t sift before measuring
• 1/3 cup strong coffee (I used freshly ground espresso beans)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Method

• Cream margarine (butter!).
• Add cocoa, confectioner sugar (I sifted these together) alternately with coffee and vanilla.
• Add 1/2 tsp of water if too stiff.