I'm curious is I can use chocolate buttercream for a cake I'm baking right now. It's the puppy pan so it's mostly brown. I'd like to use choc bc instead of tinting bc brown. Can anyone suggest one of the choc bc recipes? Will they hold up for making stars? I only have cocoa, not any baking chocolate. Any suggestions?

I use the chocolate buttercream I adapted from my regular buttercream all the time for decorating. The chocolate wedding cake in my photos was done using this and the basketweave came out very well. It crusts well and tastes really yummy.

Chocolate Buttercream

1/2 c shortening (NOT the new Crisco!)
1/2 c butter or margarine
1/3 c powdered non dairy coffee creamer
1/2 c cocoa
1/2 c water
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 lbs pwd sugar

Cream margarine and shortening well. Add creamer and cocoa and mix well until fluffy. Add salt to the water so that it can dissolve (I do this before I begin). Add powdered sugar, vanilla and water. Mix for about 5 minutes or so til nice and creamy.

Hope this helps!

I like the recipe from the back of the hersheys cocoa container. Just leave out a bit of the milk so that it's stiffer and it will hold the stars!

I make my regular buttercream and add cocoa powder or melted chocolate to it. Just add until you get the taste and color you want. The only change I have to make to my recipes is adding more liquid because the chocolate makes it drier.

adding cocoa powder to finished regular bc will work fine?

i ended up not making choc bc because i didn't have enough cocoa pwd to make a double batch. so now i have regular bc and i'm trying to get a dark brown. i even ran to walmart for more wilton brown and it's not working.

I actually make my buttercream first then add in the cocoa powder or melted chocolate. This way I can see the color and taste of it. My fave cocoa powder right now is Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa. It gives a really deep brown color and a rich chocolate taste.