Frosting (No, really) (Day 14)

I promise I won't do this very often, but on occasion I can do something clever in the kitchen and maybe, just maybe, someone will find it useful.

Short version, because I found myself writing a longish post about a recipe and oh god, please no: measure out equal amounts of chocolate chips and water, boil said water and pour on chocolate chips. Stir and cool--use an ice bath and/or put it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes until cold but not frozen. Then--and this is the crazy part--add a little bit of peanut butter and boom! You go from a think glaze to something that you can legitimately spread onto a cake or whatever else you put frosting on.

I was originally going to use just the chocolate and water, which I have done a few times and gotten to mousse consistency, but I had better things to do on Friday then stir chocolate for that long. I remembered something I'd read in one of Erin McKenna's cookbooks about coconut oil rescuing frosting that had started to melt (her frosting recipe is based on coconut oil). Guessing that the secret to that approach was really the saturated fat, I suspected the peanut butter would work--and it did.

Needless to say, you could use another nut butter or tahini, which I imagine would be delicious. You could also use something like cashew cream, but then I'd start out with less water during the melting phase.  

Saturated fat is not healthy, but if you're going to eat it, have it with fiber, i.e., a whole food like nuts or avocados, not coconut oil, palm oil, or vegan butter. (There's a surprising amount of saturated fat in those chocolate chips as it is.) I have a sweet tooth like so many other people, but since the Korean side of my family runs to high cholesterol regardless of what we eat, I'd like to indulge my taste for sweets without feeling like I'm shortening my life. Crazy, I know.

Deb in the City