By: Deborah O'Malley, M.Sc | Last updated April, 2021

Overview:

Something you might not know about me is, when I’m not doing CRO and A/B testing, I’m busy in the kitchen making homemade fudge.

People say my fudge is the best they’ve ever had!

I take great pride in creating delicious chocolate treats, and am always on the hunt to find the best-tasting chocolate in existence.

For quite a while now, I’ve been searching for the best-ever chocolate icing.

Pre-Covid, back when my kids had such thing as school and movie nights, I’d bake delicious cupcakes for the school movie bake sale. They were always a hit!

My secret is I’d use Duncan Hines packaged cake mix, but add real, homemade butter cream icing.

Last summer, my 9-year old son got quite into baking and would YouTube exciting, new recipes to try. He made cookies, breads, and even donuts. Some of it tasted, well, edible. . .

In his baking tear, one of the things he discovered was a delicious-tasting chocolate icing.

It’s branded as 1-minute icing – but that’s a complete misnomer since the ready-made product has to first sit in the fridge for 30 minutes!

This so called 1-minute, easy icing is not for the faint of heart. You have to boil water and melt chocolate. But if you’re willing to take on such a challenge, it’s the most delicious icing you’ll ever have!

At least, I think so. . .

To validate and quantify my statement, I subjected my poor family to yet another one of my silly A/B tests.

This time, I stacked the "The World’s Best Icing" up against your standard, classic, highly processed, pre-packaged brand name variety, Duncan Hines.

My kids were delighted to be able to try to two different types of iced cupcakes!

Can you guess which one won?

The World’s Best Icing, of course. Well, mostly. . .

My husband, 7-year old daughter, and me all agreed, the homemade icing was the best we’ve ever had!

But my cheeky 9-year old son asserted he preferred Duncan Hines. Much to my dismay.  . .

We all know 3 out of 4 is not a valid sample size.

So my call to action is to try this incredibly delicious icing for yourself.

Included as a special bonus is a paper format recipe of the World’s Best Icing so you don’t have to keep annoyingly stopping the original YouTube video to follow along while you’re making it.

Simply view or print this paper copy and try the icing for yourself. Then let me know if you agree it’s the world’s best chocolate icing -- or if you've discovered an ever better recipe.

As with every other cooking website out there, consider this story my long, irrelevant prelude you have to read before you can actually get to the recipe itself. 😉

And without further ado, here it is: The World’s Best Chocolate Icing Recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 3 ¼ cups powdered (icing) sugar
• 2/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/3 sticks softened butter (1 stick of butter = 1/2 cup)
• 1/3 cups boiling water
• 4 tbsp dark chocolate, 75% cocoa
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preparation Instructions:

1. Mix dry ingredients (icing sugar and cocoa powder):

2. Add softened butter:

3. Add boiling water:

4. Use an electric mixer on medium speed, and beat until smooth (about 3 minutes):

5. Melt dark chocolate either in a chocolate melter, using low power in the microwave, or with a double-boiler. Add the melted chocolate to icing mix and beat the mixture again until silky smoothy (about 3 minutes):

6. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes:

7. Take out of the fridge, remove the saran wrap, and let the icing soften at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Then spread generously on cake or cupcakes.

8. Enjoy!

9. A/B test against other icing recipes and share your thoughts in the comments section below. Do you agree it’s the best chocolate icing you’ve ever had?

Special thanks to Emma’s Goodies YouTube channel for originally providing this delicious recipe.