Fudge Frosting- Cooking with Mom

I have wanted Mom to teach me how to make this frosting for a long time.  We set a date for a cooking class, and here are the results.  There is a knack to making this, and like all good cooks, Mom can just tell by looking at it if it is right.  With that said, I have included the cooking times as best I can.  This batch turned out to perfection. There was only 1 piece of cake that made it back home so my husband could sample it. The rest was doled out along my way home as I dropped off  plates of cake to my family.  What better way to to just drop in and say hello like, "Do you want to sample this cake with Mom's Fudge Frosting?"

One of the best fudge frosting you will eat!

This recipe was taken from The Scranton Centennial Cookbook...

Fudge Frosting:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix sugar and cocoa.  Add milk and stir until combined.  Add butter.  Bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Do not stir constantly.  Remove from heat.  Add vanilla.  Beat by hand until mixture cools and thickens.  Spread on cake.  This recipe will frost a 10 1/2 in. x 15 1/2 in. pan.  You can cut this in half for a regular bundt or 13" x 9" cake. (You may add walnuts, too.)

This recipe was submitted by two of Scranton's finest cooks, Mrs. Don Baker and Mrs. Clarence Loeffler.

Printable version: Mom's Fudge Frosting

Assemble the 5 ingredients: sugar, butter, milk, cocoa, and vanilla.

Add sugar and cocoa into a heavy bottom sauce pan,
so mixture won't burn while cooking on stove top.

Mix together until thoroughly blended. 

Add milk to mixture and stir until incorporated.

Add butter.

Heat to dissolve sugar and melt butter.

Bring to a boil .  You can see that it is starting to boil around the edges.

Bring to a rolling boil, and cook about 5 minutes.
Do not stir constantly.

Add the vanilla. 

And, start beating the frosting.  This takes a while. 

Keep beating while the frosting cools.
Beat it, do not stir.

The mixture will start to thicken.
Keep beating! 

Mom drizzled some over the cake to check for consistency. 

The frosting needs to stick to the sides of the cake. 

Did I say to keep beating the frosting? 

It will be thick, but still running off the spoon.

Add chopped walnuts, if desired.

Beautiful! 

Enjoy!  

It is a hit with Mom, Gail, and Rick!

Thanks, Mom, for a great day and a my cooking lesson!

How the Scranton Centennial Cookbook came to be:

Scranton, Iowa, is a rural farming community located in west central Iowa.  It was originally platted in 1869 when the railroad came through that part of Iowa.

As centennials slowly rolled across the Middle West in the 1960's, there was talk of a centennial for Scranton.

Incidental to planning the centennial, was the determination by a group of Scranton club women to publish a cookbook.

This book is filled with recipes contributed by Scranton area women who have used these recipes to prepare dishes that grace the tables at church and PTA suppers, that help celebrate family Thanksgiving and 4th of July and that fill and refresh hungry families that have planted and harvested crops and attended football games on cold nights.

In short, this recipe I am sharing and others from Midwest cooks, are the recipes that have nourished Middle America; that have raised healthy young men and women and have helped conquer a new frontier.  Many have been handed down from generation to generation and all have been "taste tested" many times.

(taken from the forward of the cookbook)

This frosting has been enjoyed many times by my family, and I am passing it to another generation to enjoy!