Okay...one last time.... I need a good chocolate icing recipe that is stiff enough to do a basket weave on a cake......HELP!!!

can you add melted chocolate or cocoa to your regular recipe?

just a thought for ya'! HTH!

I've always seen that you can just add cocoa powder or melted chocolate to a crusting buttercream recipe to make it chocolate. I've not yet tried it as i always seem to work with just plain vanilla BC. Perhaps just try substituting some cocoa powder for powdered sugar and see if that gets you what you need. Sorry i'm not much help.

This is the recipe that I use:
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/356/ChocolateFrosting67535.shtml

I have to fight my family off so that they won't eat it all on me, before I get my cake decorated. I have found it to be a little bit stiff, so I usually end up adding more liquid. Good luck!
HTH

Milk Chocolate Buttercream from the cake bible:

1 lb milk chocolate, in pieces
8 oz dark chocolate, preferably extra bittersweet or bittersweet (you really need this to cut the sweetness), in pieces
1 1/2 c. butter, softened but still cold


Melt chocolate in double boiler or microwave. Stir until smooth, cool until no longer warm to touch. In a bowl, beat butter at medium speed and slowly add cooled chocolate. (I like to add 1 tsp of vanilla or 1 Tbsp liqueur. For the latter I increase the milk chocolate to 1 lb 4oz. )

Tips:
Only fill your piping bags half full
Use 2 bags so you can switch bags at the first sign of the frosting softening
Have a bowl of ice water to immerse your hand in if you have hot/sweaty hands

Just add cocoa to your regular recipe.

I use the basic BC recipe with shorting, I use cocoa powfer, and like Mme_k said it ends up needing extra liquid because it's to stiff. I add almond flavor and it makes it yummy!!

Just my opinion:

Take the wilton's decorator icing recipe swap out half the shortening for unsalted butter, use heavy cream in place of the water or milk-i forget which is in the recipe - melt 2 oz of baking chocolate and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder.

Follow the recipe directions just sift together the cocoa powder and sugar and add that to creamed fats when ready and add the melted chocolate right before you add the heavy cream....

Hope that helps
-Stacy

I just made the dark chocolate frosting recipe off the Hershey's Dark Chocolate cocoa can. OMG! It is amazing and you can easily add a little less liquid for the consistancy you want.

Now I have personally done a basketweave with the recipe on the regular hersheys cocoa can. I think they are the same just depends on what you want. My basketweave is in my pics and the consistancy was really good.

I use a very simple recipe 1# softened butter, 2#powdered sugar, 1/4c. Hershey cocoa powder, 5-6 tablespoons milk,1/2 tsp vanilla. If your hands are hot use several bags, keep a bowl of ice covered with dish towel to lay your bags on.

i make a double batch of IndyDebi's buttercream and then add one 16oz bag of melted Ghiradelli dark chocolate to it.

It gets mighty stiff -- so much so have to add extra milk to soften it enough to pipe.

OMG! You are all fantastic!!!!! Now...just got to figure out which one to use!