Instructions
Glossy Chocolate Icing:
To make icing, melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in sugar, cocoa, and salt- the mixture will be thick/grainy. Combine cream, sour cream and coffee granules in a large measuring cup, mixing until smooth. Gradually add cream mixture to chocolate until blended and smooth. Cook until sugar has dissolved, and mixture is smooth and hot to the touch.
Cook to just boiling.
Take mixture off the heat, and add vanilla. Cool at room temperature until spreadable (up to three hours). If it isn\'t getting thick enough to be spreadable, put in the refrigerator until thick enough to spread, about 2 hours. You can chill the frosting in an ice water bath, stirring it occasionally until it was spreadable, about 20 minutes or so. If it gets too thick to spread easily, warm gently in the microwave until it\'s just right (20 seconds or so, repeat if necessary). Stir well, and ice cake, frosting first layer, then placing second layer on top, and icing the top and then the sides.
Classic Vanilla Buttercream Icing:
In a small clean dry saucepan, place 2 cups sugar and then pour 1/2 cup water down the sides of the pan. Make an X in the sugar with 1 finger to encourage the water to seep into the middle of the pan of sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until softball stage or 235 degrees F or a bit beyond (240) on a candy thermometer. (Does it turn to a ball when dropped in cold water?)
Meanwhile, in a mixer with a whip attachment, whip the whites until they form soft peaks. When the syrup is up to temperature, drizzle it down the wall of the mixing bowl with the mixer running. Continue whipping until light, fluffy and almost cooled down, on high speed. You don\'t want butter to melt when time to add! Start adding the chilled butter a 1 T at a time to cool the frosting and thicken it. When it gets thick you can stop adding butter; you may not use the whole pound (it depends on how much water you cooked out of your syrup). Add vanilla extract to taste. You can refrigerate for a week, or freeze. When you are ready to use, re-whip. Thin with milk if necessary (teaspoon or so), especially if you want to pipe it.
NOTE: You need a powerful mixer for this recipe, like a KitchenAid. You just really have to beat the tar out of it. The egg whites need to be quite stiff before you add the syrup. The syrup has to be cooked down quite a bit. After I SLOWLY poured the syrup into the egg whites, I beat that for 10 minutes on medium high until it was almost completely cooled. Basically, the mixture was like marshmallow cream at that point. The butter has to be cold. I used 3 sticks of cold butter and then again, beat it good.
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