No Butter Chocolate Frosting

A few nights ago, Juliet and I had one of our not-quite-famous Jammie Jams. About once a month, I make a special treat, and let Juliet stay up a little late to watch a movie with me. It is called a Jammie Jam because we wear our Pajamas, aka Jammies. (Aren't I so clever?) I know that she is really too young to understand, but I think it will become a fun tradition, much like the Pajama Parties my family used to have. The treat I decided to make for this particular Jammie Jam was zucchini brownies (not my recipes, so you won't see it posted here). I wanted to make frosting, but I didn't want to completely destroy the healthy zucchini thing with a bunch of butter. I opted to make a butter free frosting, and managed to get this rich chocolatey beauty.

Ingredients:

1 oz cream cheese, softened (I recommend Nufchatel, it has 1/3 less fat than cream cheese)
2 TBS sour cream
2 TBS low-fat vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

First off, you are probably thinking I'm a totally weirdo for having cream cheese, sour cream and yogurt in this recipe, but I'm not. They each bring something to the party that I find appealing.

Butter Replacement Ingredients

Cream cheese acts as a good stabilizer. Sour cream or yogurt alone would yield a runny frosting. I love the texture and flavor of sour cream, you could use plain yogurt, but it won't produce quite the same results. Your frosting won't be as creamy. Yogurt is great for several reasons, it tastes good, and it's good for you. The bacteria in yogurt is good for your digestion. A product that is good for your digestion in frosting? Heck yes!

Now that you understand a bit of the why, let's get going with the how.  Combine the cream cheese, sour cream, and yogurt together until nice and smooth. Mix in the cocoa, and then add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Mix the ingredients until you have reached a spreadable consistency, adding more powdered sugar if necessary. Add your vanilla and get ready to frost.

Adding Vanilla, to my Kitchenaid bowl!

Ready to Spread

I used my frosting on brownies, as you already know. It could be used in several applications. I would recommend it for brownies, cookies, and the middle layer of cakes. You could use it for an outside cake layer, but it is not going to have the decorative properties that many people are looking for.

You may notice that not all of the brownies got frosted. I gave Juliet unfrosted brownies. This was not because I'm against her eating frosting, it was because she makes big enough messes with dry food, and we were eating them in front of the TV.

Also, some of you may be interested to know that while creating this recipe, I wrote it down with a crayon. Sometimes, you just work with what you have.

I hope you enjoy this rich, tasty, no butter frosting.