Buttercream Recipes – Frosting
Have you ever had to make a layer cake and then wonder which buttercream frosting would work best? Wondering if you should make or buy your own frosting? Here are more than 30 frostings and buttercream recipes to choose from.
Did you know that a simple homemade frosting really takes as little as 5 minutes to make? Plus, you don’t need any special equipment; all you need is a bowl and a whisk (or an electric mixer). So, for me, buying frosting has never been an option.
Basic vanilla frosting recipe
Ideally, you can make a basic vanilla buttercream frosting with just 4 simple ingredients. So when you are pressed for time, use this simple basic recipe. You can frost a cake, color it with gel food coloring, put it in a piping bag, and pipe with it. Freeze leftovers in the freezer for months (thaw in the fridge before using).
- 1 cup (228 g) room temperature unsalted butter.
- 4 cups (500 g) powdered sugar (confectioners’ sugar).
- 1/2 tsp or a pinch of salt.
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, and
- 2 to 4 tbsp liquid – a little milk or water.
- Add 4 oz of melted, cooled chocolate to make chocolate frosting.
- Replace the liquid with lemon juice to make a lemon-flavored frosting.
- In a large bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine on medium speed until no lumps are visible, then whip on high speed all these ingredients until light and fluffy.
Of course, buttercreams and frostings have come a long way over the years, with so many options to choose from. Why make a simple 5-minute frosting when you can make a rich, velvety meringue frosting that takes just about 15 minutes?
The truth is, there is the right frosting for the right cake and the right frosting for the right time. So choose wisely. I have explained more about it below, but have also given detailed instructions in my ultimate guide to Buttercream frosting.
For now, let’s drool over these 30-plus buttercream and frosting recipes.
Buttercream Recipes
Best Buttercream Frosting Recipe
A good vanilla buttercream frosting recipe is a must-have on hand. Today, I share with you how I make the best frosting recipe everybody keeps raving about. Using my method you will never want to look for another recipe ever again.
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
This chocolate frosting recipe is rich, creamy, and easy to make with real melted chocolate and butter. Perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and cookies—pipeable, smooth, and loved by all ages!
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Bakery Style Frosting
If you are looking for the best frosting, then this bakery-style vanilla frosting is a must-try. It takes only 5 minutes to whip and has the longest shelf life ever! Also, it's an absolute kids' favorite vanilla or chocolate frosting over any cupcakes, cakes, or cookies.
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Ermine Frosting – Boiled Milk Frosting
Learn how to make ermine frosting—also known as boiled milk frosting or cooked flour frosting. This smooth, pipeable buttercream is less sweet and perfect for cakes and cupcakes.
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American Buttercream Frosting
My American buttercream has a glossy sheen due to the unique method I use in making it. This simple and easy recipe makes a delicious velvety smooth texture, not grainy buttercream. This will soon become your favorite frosting recipe.
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Swiss Meringue Buttercream SMBC
Silky smooth, rich and creamy with a velvet-like texture is what this Swiss meringue buttercream (SMBC) is all about. Learn to make the best Swiss buttercream with my no-fail recipe. In this recipe post and video tutorial, I tell you everything you need to know about SMBC recipe, including a step-by-step tutorial, how to flavor it, store it, and troubleshoot any possible problems ahead of time.
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Swiss Meringue Buttercream with Meringue Powder
The buttercream I used on these cupcakes is a meringue buttercream made with meringue powder. And it’s light, fluffy and deliciously creamy. It’s a simple, easy and effortless recipe using powdered egg whites instead of raw egg whites. Also, this meringue buttercream does not need any candy thermometer. Hence, it is a Swiss meringue buttercream with meringue powder.
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Italian Meringue Buttercream
Italian Meringue Buttercream is a velvety frosting made by whipping egg whites to stiff peaks and gradually adding a hot sugar syrup. This creates a stable meringue, which is then combined with butter to create a smooth and creamy buttercream. Known for its light texture and luxurious flavor, it's a favorite among bakers and cake decorators for its versatility and elegant finish.
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Italian Meringue Buttercream with Meringue Powder
This is a meringue buttercream made with meringue powder. And it's light, fluffy, and deliciously creamy. It's a simple and easy recipe using powdered egg whites instead of raw egg whites. Today, I am using the Italian meringue buttercream method but you can also make this the Swiss meringue method.
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French Buttercream Recipe
This French buttercream is custardy, silky smooth, and buttery made with egg yolks, sugar syrup, and lots of butter. It takes less than 15 minutes to make and is perfect for frosting cakes, pipe cupcake swirls, and even draped with fondant.
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German Buttercream Recipe
This German buttercream is silky smooth and buttery with the taste of vanilla pastry cream. Use this frosting to frost cakes, pipe on cupcakes, or fill it in macarons and other desserts.
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The Best Stiff Buttercream frosting for Pipping Buttercream Flowers
If you plan to pipe buttercream flowers the first thing you need is a stiff buttercream frosting recipe for piping flowers. One that will pipe perfect buttercream flowers for you and will taste as delicious as it looks. This simple, easy and effortless recipe will give you a stiff buttercream frosting for cake decorating you will ever need.
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Glossy Korean Buttercream Recipe
The recent trend in making buttercream flowers is the use of glossy Korean Buttercream. The original Korean buttercream is made using the Italian meringue method. I adapted it to make the Swiss meringue method.
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Homemade Whipped Cream
Light, fluffy, and irresistibly creamy—this homemade whipped cream (also known as Chantilly cream) is the perfect 3-ingredient topping for cakes, pies, and more. No preservatives, no stabilizers—just classic flavor made in minutes!
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How to Stabilize Whipped Cream
We all need our whipped cream dessert to look just as beautiful tomorrow as it does today. But keeping whipped cream fresh longer can be tricky. These five simple and easy methods to stabilize whipped cream will make sure your cakes, cupcakes, and desserts look fresh longer. You can try any of these five methods that work best for your current project
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Stable Cream Cheese Frosting for Piping and Decorating
This stable cream cheese frosting is smooth, tangy, and perfect for piping and decorating. Made with equal parts butter and cream cheese, it holds its shape beautifully on cakes and cupcakes without becoming too soft. Just five simple ingredients and ready in minutes.
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No Butter Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
This no butter cream cheese frosting is light, fluffy and melts in the mouth just like whipped cream. A simple, easy and effortless recipe that gets done in less than 10 minutes. Perfect for cupcakes or your favorite carrot cake recipe.
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The Best Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
Creamy, fluffy, and bursting with real strawberry flavor – no artificial flavoring needed! This strawberry buttercream is made with reduced strawberry puree, which means intense flavor, natural color, and a smooth consistency that’s perfect for piping or spreading.
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Caramel Frosting Recipe
A good caramel buttercream is smooth, rich, and glossy. It's made with homemade caramel sauce that takes just five minutes to make. Drizzle some caramel sauce and a few grains of salt for that salted caramel buttercream everyone craves.
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Champagne Buttercream
Every special occasion deserves a special frosting, that's what this pink champagne buttercream frosting is all about. Made with champagne reduction, light, and creamy. A perfect over cakes, cupcakes, macarons, or desserts
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Coffee Buttercream Frosting
TThis coffee buttercream recipe creates a rich and creamy frosting with a strong coffee flavor. By dissolving coffee in hot cream before adding it to the butter and powdered sugar mixture, the buttercream achieves a smooth and flavorful consistency. It's perfect for frosting cakes, cupcakes, and other baked goods, adding a delicious coffee twist to your desserts.
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Eggnog Frosting Buttercream
This rich and creamy eggnog frosting is full of holiday flavor! Perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. Made in just 5 minutes with real eggnog, butter, and powdered sugar.
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Butterscotch Buttercream Frosting
I call butterscotch buttercream frosting the twin sister of caramel buttercream. While quite similar, butterscotch has a uniquely delicate and sweet flavor from brown sugar. Also, it's much softer than caramel and goes well with some unique cake flavors such as banana, pumpkin, apple, and even vanilla or chocolate.
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Dark Nutella Buttercream Frosting
If you love Nutella, this Nutella buttercream frosting will probably be your favorite. An absolute heaven over cakes, cupcakes and between macaron shells. Rich, creamy and decadent this frosting takes no more than five minutes to mix and is the perfect consistency to pipe pretty swirls on cupcakes or pipe boarders or designs around cakes such as this one.
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Best Kahlua Buttercream Frosting
This Kahlua buttercream frosting is the ultimate dessert accompaniment. Rich, creamy and perfect with any dessert from frosting delicious cupcakes, layered cakes, as well as between macaron shells. Make it with or without chocolate, add a dash of espresso. No matter what time of the year this frosting is always the ultimate treat.
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White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe
This rich white chocolate buttercream frosting is smooth, creamy, and easy to make. Perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and piping, with tips for using melted white chocolate for the best texture.
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Different Buttercream Flavors from One Recipe
Why have just one buttercream flavor when you can try so many more. These simple, easy and effortless variations to create different buttercream flavors from one recipe will open new and wonderful possibilities for your cake projects. From strawberry to caramel, marzipan or Kahlua, you can use a basic American buttercream, meringue-based buttercream.
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Ganache Frosting
Chocolate Ganache
Chocolate ganache is a versatile frosting with just two ingredients you can make for any cake, cupcake, or dessert. Use it as a frosting, drip, glaze, or piping. Here's my recipe, tips, and troubleshooting for you.
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Chocolate Ganache Recipe for Decorating Cakes
The perfect chocolate ganache for decorating a cake is one that you can use to cover a cake with fondant and I call it the Cake Decorators Chocolate Ganache Recipe. One that adds stability to the sculpted cake when working on a novelty cake and stays firm when stacked into a tiered wedding cake. My chocolate ganache is like my rock for me as a cake decorator.
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White Chocolate Ganache
Chocolate ganache is the most versatile frosting you can make; but, white chocolate can be trickier than regular chocolate. So, today, I share with you everything you need to know about making white chocolate ganache including a step-by-step video tutorial.
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White Chocolate Ganache for Covering a Cake
Making white chocolate ganache can be a bit tricker than regular chocolate ganache. Today, I'm going to share my step by step tutorial on how to make the perfect cake decorators' white chocolate ganache. No seized chocolate, no lumpy, grainy ganache just pure, creamy smooth goodness.
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How to flavor Ganache aka Ganache Flavor variations
One of the fun things about ganache is that you can flavor ganache a million different ways. These simple, easy and effortless recipes to flavor ganache can make a huge difference to the final outcome of your cake. Here are a few ways on how to flavor ganache or rather a few ganache flavor variations that I love and are popular with my customers.
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Cookie Decorating
Royal Icing Recipe – 5 Recipes
Royal icing recipe is a quick and easy icing that dries hard. It's very sweet because it's mostly powdered sugar and egg whites. It has endless uses in the cake and cookie decorating world. Once you learn the right method to make it and the right consistency that works for you, it can be a fun experience.
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Royal Icing Recipe with Meringue Powder or Egg White Powder
Royal Icing Recipe is a quick and easy icing that dries hard. It’s very sweet because it’s mostly powder sugar and Egg whites. It has endless uses in the cake and cookie decorating world. Once you learn the right method to make it and the right consistency that works for you, it can be a fun experience.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between icing and frosting?
Icings are those simple glazes you make to pour over a pound cake or pastries. Sometimes made with just powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar) and milk, and sometimes made with melted chocolate too. The icing is usually of a pouring consistency, while frosting is thick, light, and fluffy, which can be spread over a cake or piped over cupcakes.
What is the difference between buttercream and frosting?
They are similar and often used interchangeably. The main ingredient in buttercream is, of course, butter.
All buttercreams are frostings, but not all frostings are buttercream recipes. For example, a cream cheese frosting is not a buttercream; similarly, a buttercream made with vegetable shortening is a frosting.
What is the best kind of frosting for cupcakes?
Cupcakes can be served with any frosting from simple vanilla to cream cheese or meringue. What’s important to consider is how I’ll store these cupcakes and for how long they’ll be out.
For example, if your cupcakes are going to be sitting out for a long time, then cream cheese frosting or perishable frostings are not the way to go. If your cupcakes are going to be out in hot, humid conditions, then you probably want to avoid meringue or butter-based frostings too.
Is frosting made with vegetable shortening better?
That’s not true. It depends on the project you need to use it. Shortening-based buttercream is considered better only in some conditions. It has a longer shelf life and can be kept out on the counter for days if stored well. It is non-dairy, as well as parve.
What do I do if my buttercream does not turn out well?
Sometimes things can go wrong, but most often there are ways to fix buttercream recipes. So, don’t make haste to throw the batch just yet. Read my article – Ultimate guide to buttercream recipes to see the troubleshooting and fixing options.
Different types of frosting and buttercream recipes?
Yes, I know that was a long list of buttercream recipes. The number of frosting recipes can be overwhelming and sometimes confusing. In general, we can categorize these as
- Butter-based buttercream – simple all-purpose buttercreams like my velvet American buttercream, Vanilla buttercream (eggless).
- Decorators buttercream – often with all or some vegetable shortening to prevent the frosting from melting easily, like my Bakery style frostings – Vanilla and Chocolate frosting, as well as flour for stability, often called Ermine or boiled flour frosting.
- Cream Cheese based – made with cream cheese, often with or without butter, like my classic cream cheese, which is made with butter, which adds more stability, and my no-butter cream cheese frosting, when you want a more luxurious dessert-type frosting.
- Meringue buttercream – made with the addition of whipped egg whites. Less sweet than the classic butter-based buttercream, like my Swiss Meringue or Italian Meringue.
- Egg-based buttercream – like French Buttercream and German buttercream, made with egg yolks, then whipped to make a light and fluffy frosting with the addition of butter.
- Whipped Cream Frosting – the lightest of them all is, of course, simple heavy cream. I shared 5 different methods to make whipped cream at home. As well as a whipped cream buttercream frosting.
Which frosting or buttercream recipe to use?
There will always be many options to choose from, but the only one that’s usually just right for you. Here are a few questions to consider. Often, you will have to take all four into consideration when making this decision.
- What cake flavor do I want?
- Where are you going to display the cake – inside vs. outside?
- The inside allows you to use perishable fillings, while the outside depends on the weather.
- What is the weather like at the time of the event? Is it cold winter or hot, humid summer? Hot summers need more caution with perishable frostings.
- How far does the cake have to travel? Long travels in cold weather are not an issue if you pack things well. Hot summers can be a nightmare, so carry ice packs.
You may also like
- Layer cake recipes
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- Vanilla cake recipes
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- Chocolate Vanilla Sheet Cake
- Bundt cake recipes
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Hi Veena,
What do you do now that there is no trans fats in shortening? I tried the sweetex icing shortening without trans fats and is doesn’t taste as good as the old one. I had to add a lot more flavoring. How can I get it to taste better? I really used to like my frosting and now, not so much.
Hey Pauletta. I am an all-butter buttercream person. I never liked frosting with vegetable shortening.
There are very few of my frosting recipes (maybe 2 or 3 our of almost 50 variations) that actually call for vegetable shortening.
As for your question, the only thing possible is to add more flavor as you already do.
Or you can try half butter and half shortening.
Add some pudding mixes – these add a nice flavor and help stabilize the buttercreams.
Use whipping cream (if possible) for the liquid.
Thanks
Thank you for your reply. I may have to try the butter buttercream. Or maybe try mixing butter with the shortening I never thought about adding pudding. That might be good to try too. Thank you again. I can’t wait to try your buttercream icing.
Thank you Pauletta
HI I LOVE YOUR RECEIPES & TIPS. I HAVE SO MUCH PAPER FROM ALL MY PRINTOUTS. DO YOU HAVE A BOOK WITH YOUR RECEIPES IN ??? IF SO HOW & WHERE CAN I GET IT
THANKS
TRISH
Hey Tricia
Thank you, so happy you are enjoying my recipes and find my tips useful. I don’t have an ebook. I use to have an online shop with recipes but now they have all been added to the free section.
You can bookmark these on your browser for future reference that way you will always have them.
Thanks
Who knew that there were so many different recipes for making frosting!? This is a great list and very helpful for finding the right kind for your needs.
Thanks Helen, yes, so many!!