I'm really starting to get into this and I'd like to make my own icing for my next cake, but I'm not sure which one will work best with what I've got. I do not have a KA mixer, only a hand mixer, and I'll need a chocolate icing recipe. I've never had success with making my own icing but I've only tried a few times. what recipe would you recommend? can I get a link?

HI Jasmine, do you want a buttercream recipe or a fondant recipe. If you need a fondant recipe, I highly recommend that you buy it. If its chocolate buttercream, this is how I do it.

1:2 ratio of butter and powdered sugar and 1 or 2 tablespoons of water or milk. That is if you are using 100g of butter, use 200g of powdered sugar. Then I melt some cooking chocolate and add it to the buttercream. Or make some ganache and add to the buttercream.

HTH.

I used this icing

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-7293-Crusting-Chocolate-Fudge-Buttercream-Icing.html

but I didn't add the meringue powder. It was fantastic!! I couldn't stop snacking on it, lol. Just make sure that your butter is room temp before you use it, especially since you are using a hand mixer.

its for filling and crumb coating. I'll be covering it in fondant. that recipe CakeMommy posted looks do-able! thanks!

CakeMommy3, I just whipped up a batch of that chocolate BC...it is fantastic! My family really liked it as well. That in itself is huge because I can't find a white BC that my family likes to save the life of me. They always say..."it's too sweet". Hello, it's frosting, it's supposed to be sweet! Anyways, I'm glad I came across this thread.