If you love chocolate, keep reading.
The other day I stumbled upon this incredibly edible recipe for chocolate frosting by the super baker and blogger Manuela at Passionforbaking and I just had to try it. I used 70% chocolate which made the frosting a tad bitter, but that didn’t bother my family – they finished every last bite. This frosting is a mixture of dark chocolate, homemade caramel and butter.

I ran into a little trouble the first time I tried to make this frosting and the best way to go about it is to prepare the caramel first. All you do is boil sugar and water until you have a golden caramel color. Then you add your near boiling cream – very carefully – to the caramel, stirring continuously. When you add the cream the whole thing can easily boil over, so make sure that you’re using a big enough pot – otherwise you will, as I did, spend an unproductive afternoon scraping caramel off your hob. So again, be really sure that you boil the sugar and water in a big enough pot.
Turns out that when you make a lot of frosting, you actually need something to put it on, so I made some chocolate cupcakes following my favorite recipe.

Devil’s food cupcakes (makes about 40 cupcakes)

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method: 

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare cupcake pans.
• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl and set aside.
• Whip the sugar, buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on medium speed until all the ingredients have blended together, about 30 seconds.
• Add approximately half the flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined. Repeat with the remaining flour mixture. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure that the flour is fully incorporated.
• Pour the batter evenly into the cupcake forms. The batter should come one-third or half the way up the sides of the forms.
• Bake for 18 – 20 minutes.
• Let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack.

Silky caramel frosting (Recipe: Passion 4 baking) 

• 1 cup sugar (225 g)
• 50 ml water
• 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 16 oz dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate  (55% – 70% cocoa solids)
• 2 cups butter (Manuela uses unsalted butter but I use the regular stuff, either is a good choice) 

Method: 

• Put the sugar and water into a pan (remember what I said about the size – use fairly large pot). Place on a medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. When the sugar is dissolved – stop stirring. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer until golden brown, this will take about 10 minutes.
• Heat the cream in another pan until just boiling. Remove from the heat and carefully pour into the caramel. Stir until smooth and leave to cool for 3 minutes.
• Put the chocolate into a mixing bowl and pour over the caramel. Leave for 1 minute and stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.
• Start the mixer and mix (with the whisk attachment) on low speed until the mixture has cooled down and the bowl is no longer warm to the touch.
• Add the cubed butter and continue mixing until the frosting is nice and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Enjoy!