Cocoa butter frosting

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Cocoa Butter Frosting

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup of cocoa butter (4 ounces) - melted

2 teaspoons of vanilla or more if you like (also you can scrape off the seeds from the pod, which creates a speckled look for the icing.)

honey to taste - starting with 1 heaping TB - and possibly going up a lot more

pinch of sea or himalayan salt to taste

optional spritz of lemon - Apparently it also helps the recipe to emulsify.

Beat yolks, preferably in a standing mixer for ease, until they are light yellow, doubled

in volume and thick. Add honey and vanilla and salt (and optional lemon) and keep

beating until everything is well incorporated and the consistency is still thick. Then transfer the bowl to become the top of a double boiler and with the heat on a middle

low (not ridiculously low), keep whisking the eggs (don't leave them alone for too long

or the yolks will begin to cook and then turn lumpy - this can happen in seconds at the

wrong time so be careful). As the eggs slowly get warmer - begin to add the cocoa butter to the yolks in a thin drizzle. Keep whisking. (I've melted the cocoa butter first and also left it solid and added that way, but it seems to be quicker if it is added in melted. But either way works - just use small pieces if you drop in solid bits.) Keep adding the cocoa and then taste to make sure you have enough honey added. After a while, as you continue to whisk the yolk mixture, the consistency will begin to change noticeably and will no longer have the appearance\'a0of raw yolks. Keep on a bit longer, and then take off the heat. Then, take the bowl and set it into a bigger bowl of ice water so that the mixture will begin to chill. You cannot put it on the cake when it is warm, because it is too runny. Just let it chill for a while, You can then put the mixture in the refrigerator to continue chilling. But keep the warm water from the bottom of the double boiler handy unless you over chill it and cannot easily spread it on the cake. (In which case, you simply need to let the mixture relax bit over the warm water - like a sauna, for icing!) The chilling part takes a while, so go off and do something else and stop eating it straight from the bowl. You'll figure out when it is done - when you can use a rubber spatula to spread it easily.

Or, if you are more fancy, you can use an icing bag. Refrigerate it and let it chill. The cake actually\'a0tastes best on the second day - not that I can resist eating it right away, but for some reason the flavors marry really well by then and are best from that point on. IMO, of course. Enjoy.