chocolate cream cheese frosting

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We made a half-batch of this frosting as an experiment, and put it on our 6-inch devil's food layer cake. It is so good that we wanted to share the recipe with you! We don't have any video or photos of the mixing or the steps. We may come back later and do that. But it's so simple, we think you can make it without all those things. Just follow these simple instructions to achieve another great, not-overly-sweet frosting (we know, you know we're not into sweeeeet stuff here).

The recipe below makes enough to frost:  12 cupcakes with a ton of frosting; 24 cupcakes with a traditional amount of frosting; 2 x 8-9 inch cake layers; or a 9 x 13 pan cake). We frosted two 6-inch cakes with a half-batch and still had enough for Mr. SideSwipe to eat a small bowl of frosting to "test it."

Do you like the look of this cake? You can find our "one mixer bowl" recipe for Devil's Food cake here.

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ingredients

• 1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 8 oz (226g) cream cheese softened brick-style, not spreadable
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3-1/2 (440g) cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup (44g) natural cocoa powder (we used half natural, half dutched)
• 2 - 3 Tablespoons of half-and-half, heavy cream or whole milk (to loosen frosting as needed for your application)

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instructions

• In your stand mixer fitted with a SideSwipe beater, mix at medium speed your room temperature (but not melting or microwaved!) butter, cream cheese and salt until creamy, well-combined, and lump-free.  
• Add vanilla extract. Mix on low to medium speed to combine.
• Sift powdered sugar and cocoa powder into the mixing bowl. You can skip this step if you're not piping the frosting, but we think the cocoa mixes in best this way.
• With mixer on low, gradually incorporate until moistened and begin to be combined. Don't begin on a high speed unless you want sugar and cocoa all over your kitchen!
• Once moistened, turn mixer up to medium-high speed. Add your milk a little at a time, allowing it to fully incorporate. We used the equivalent of 2 Tablespoons in our frosting - we added it in about halfway through to get the creaminess going. Then toward the end to achieve the consistency we wanted. You may want to use a little less if you're planning on detailed piping or more for a looser frosting.
• Frost completely cooled cake or cupcakes.