The Best Buttercream Frosting

Classic buttercream frosting is soft, fluffy, and silky smooth.  It’s the perfect topping for desserts like sugar cookies, cakes, cupcakes and more.  Make sure to scroll past the below recipe card for lots of tips and tricks to produce the perfect frosting.  The method is just as important as the ingredients!  When you master the perfect Buttercream Frosting, you’ll want to use it on everything!

If you want to produce the best buttercream frosting, the method is JUST as important as the ingredients.  Read through these tips and tricks before making your first batch!

What kind of butter should I use for buttercream frosting?

1. Use Real Butter. First and foremost, when you’re making buttercream frosting use real butter. Skip the margarine, or any other butter-like product here.  Obviously in a pinch those work, but in a recipe with only a few ingredients, it’s important they’re all really good and real butter will produce the best results.  I personally use salted butter.  You need salt in this recipe anyway, and salted butter makes that easy.  If you use unsalted butter, that’s just fine- you’ll just need to add in some extra fine table salt as well.  I’d start with 1/4 teaspoon and then add to taste.

2.  Use Room Temperature Butter.  Avoid using the microwave to soften your butter.  Over-warming your butter will affect your finished product. If anything, you want it just slightly cooled.

TIP: To get your chilled butter to room temperature quickly, unwrap the sticks and cut the butter into small chunks.  The smaller pieces will come to temperature more quickly and evenly.  You can also grate butter with a cheese grater (even from frozen) but then you’ll have to wash a cheese grater, so I only use that in a pinch!

Step 1: Whip Your Butter

Before you add anything to your buttercream frosting, place your room temperature butter in the bowl of your mixer and beat on medium-high speed until it’s smooth and creamy, for 2 full minutes.  When it’s happening, it feels like forever.  But just do it.  You can also use a hand mixer, but I suggest a stand mixer since one of the keys to really light and fluffy buttercream is to beat it for long periods of time.  You can use your paddle attachment, or as I’m doing – the wire whip attachment.  I find the whip attachment incorporates air that produces a light and fluffy frosting but either one works great.

Step 2: Add your powdered sugar

With the beater running, slowly add in powdered sugar a little at a time so it incorporates a little at a time until it’s all added.  Your mixture will be thick!  If I’m making frosting for a nice cake or something extra special, I also  take the time to sift it first.  For everyday baking at home I don’t always do this, but if I’m making a special occasion cake I do take that extra step.

Step 3:  Add Extract and Cream

For basic buttercream frosting, use vanilla extract.  You can play around with any other extract flavor you want!  I use 2 teaspoons of extract, and often that’s a combination of flavors.  My go-to is 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and 1/2 – 1 teaspoon almond extract.  You can experiment and go by taste, but just add a little at time because if you add too much extract your frosting will have a bit of an alcohol flavor.  If you’d like your frosting to be as light-colored as possible (it will never be pure white because of the butter) you can use clear vanilla extract.

The last very important ingredient is cream, preferably heavy cream.  Using cream, as opposed to milk or water will yield a much smoother, silkier frosting.  It makes a significant difference.  I start by adding 1-2 tablespoons, with the mixer running,  and from there it is about desired consistency.  I keep my frosting thicker if I’m using it for something like sandwiching between cookies, and I make it a lot looser for topping cupcakes or decorating a cake. Usually between 2-4 tablespoons is perfect, but I sometimes add up to 6 tablespoons or more depending on desired consistency.

Step 4: Mix, Mix, Mix

The final step is to beat your frosting for a few minutes.  I probably beat mine for a good 3-5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally.  It helps dissolve that sugar and incorporate air so your finished frosting has silky feel in your mouth, as opposed to that thick, overly sweet, gritty feeling.  It also adds air that makes it light and fluffy.  You’ll notice a visible difference the longer you beat your frosting.  It turns smooth, fluffy, and almost glossy.  It will spread like a dream!

What variations of buttercream can I make?

Honestly the sky is the limit.  If you’d like to add coloring, add gel or small amounts of liquid color when you add your extract and cream.  For flavor, aside from using different extracts, you can also fold in flavoring agents like liquors, fruit preserves, caramel sauce, unsweetened cocoa powder, spices, citrus zest, etc.  You may need to reduce the amount of cream when adding other liquid flavoring agents or increase it when adding dry ingredients (like cocoa powder)  Start with small additions and go by taste.

How do I store buttercream frosting?

If you need to store buttercream, place in an airtight container and store in fridge.  To use, bring to room temperature naturally and then re-whip until light and fluffy.

Have fun with your buttercream creations and share your successes in the comments!