Economical chocolate icing

By now, you all ready know that we like simple cakes at home.   No elaborate frostings or icings, just simple cakes and quality ingredients.  This is a recipe for chocolate icing.  Brilliant. Easy. Simple. For just about any kind of cake.  We made this for your cousin's birthday.  We made chocolate cake using the recipe from your birthday, topped with this simple chocolate icing.

This Economical Chocolate Icing is adapted from Margaret Fulton's Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery, and actually named as such. Simple ingredients + simple method = Economical.

1 and 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tbsp cocoa powder

30g (1oz) unsalted butter, softened, room temperature

1 tbsp hot water

Mix icing sugar, cinnamon and cocoa powder in a bowl, then stir in softened butter and water.  Mix to a smooth paste, adding a little more hot water if necessary.  Sufficient to cover top of a 20cm (8in) cake.

It was sufficient to cover the tops and sides of our cake!  Besides being economical, this icing is great as it was packed with that subtle cinnamon scent but not overpowering the chocolate flavour of the cocoa.  We used store-bought tubes of Queen's Writing Icing and some caramel flavoured sprinkles.