Monday 1 June 2009

Buttercream Frosting

photo credit: cupcakequeen @ flickr.com


There are a limitless variety of cupcake frosting but the most popular and versatile is buttercream frosting. This goes excellent with any kind of cupcake, including vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and red velvet cupcakes. Buttercream frosting is traditionally made with two main ingredients: butter and powdered sugar. These are mixed together to make a rich, sweet, and creamy frosting.

Here is my buttercream frosting recipe, which will be a wonderful frosting to top off your cupcakes with.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Makes enough frosting for about 2 dozen cupcakes

1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature
6-8 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of milk
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1. In an electric mixing bowl fitted with the paddle attachment or if you don't have an electric mixing bowl use a large bowl and an electric mixer, mix the butter until smooth and creamy (a few minutes).
2. Add 4 cups of the sugar, the milk and vanilla and on low speed mix until combined.
3.Add two more cups of sugar and on low speed mix until light and fluffy. If you need to, add the remaining two cups of powdered sugar.

Tips: When mixing together the buttercream frosting ingredients, be aware that powdered sugar is very light and will get into the air. You will know this is happening because when you breathe in you will feel and taste a sweetness in your breath. To avoid this, place a clean dish towel over the mixing bowl.

There 'ya go! Buttercream frosting made perfect for your cupcakes.

Buttercream frosting comes in a lot of different flavors, the most common is vanilla, which I have given you the frosting recipe for. It's also often seen in chocolate buttercream and occasionally in other flavors such as almond or peppermint. To get almond or peppermint buttercream frosting, simply replace the vanilla extract with almond or peppermint extract and alter according to your taste.


How to Care for your Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream frosting can be left at room temperature without melting. Do not leave your buttercream frosting in the sun. The best way to store it is in an airtight container. If you want to store your buttercream frosting for a few days, you can put it in an airtight container in the refrigerator and take it out a few hours before you plan to frost your cupcakes so it will defrost and soften up and make the buttercream frosting more spreadable. You can speed up this process by beating it. After you put your buttercream frosting on your cupcakes, the frosting will harden on the outside, so if you are going to decorate the buttercream frosting with sprinkles or other candies, I would advise you to do so immediately after putting it on your cupcakes. Buttercream frosting will form a hard shell in a matter of minutes (sometimes even quicker).

Good luck and come back soon for more frosting recipes and cupcake recipes!

39 comments:

  1. Yum, looks delicious! Thanks for offering to trade links--I added you to my blogroll! :)

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  2. it's so easy!! i tot only experts can do this kind of frosting..thanks for the recipe..

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  3. hi, i wanted to know if you've ever experienced the cupcake liner coming away from the cake. It does not happen all the time but it does just wanted to know if u knew. lovely cupcakes too.

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  4. Ah...
    I would DEFINATLY make it, but 1 cup of butter
    just might be too fattening. ><

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  5. Thanks porkdumplings. All I can say is it's worth it once in a while. Just don't make it too often :)

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  6. Is this buttercream more or less stable than one made with egg whites?

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  7. Sounds like a yummy recipe! I need to make some pink butter cream icing to put on thumbprint cookies for my daughters club- last minute request and all the stores are closed I have all the ingredients at home.
    thanks!

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  8. Hello - can you provide your ingredient measurements in grams/ounces please?

    Thank you.

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  9. What kind of milk do you use? Whole or one with reduced fat and do you think it even makes a difference?

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  10. I am not the best baker...and when it comes to icing, I get nervous! This frosting is THE BEST! I made it once for my husband's birthday and we were both suprised how good it turned out! I am making it now for a friend's party...thanks so much!

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  11. hi!! i can't wait to try making this frosting..but i'm not so sure about the measurement of 1 cup..how many grams is that? coz I'm in a country where all the baking equipments are looking totally different than what i'm used to..please help...
    and 1/2 cup of milk...is that powdered milk or fresh milk? thanks before :) i'll really appreciate ur help

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  12. Thanks for this recipe. I substituted almond extract for vanilla. Superb!

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  13. Hello!

    I am looking for a nice recipe of buttercream for days. I will try yours for sure, because i love the white colour!

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  14. awesome recipe. used it for a baby shower and so many people asked me for the recipe! I used almond flavoring. It was so wonderful!!! Thanks for sharing.

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  15. For the anonymous requests: You can use an online site to figure out conversion from American cups to grams, however, please remember that in the States, the measuring is VOLUME, not weight. Therefore a cup of powdered/confectioner's/icing sugar will weigh less than a cup of flour or butter. A standard US cup has a volume of 8 ounces or 240ml whereas the UK measuring cups, or ones you find in Europe, are 250ml. Saying that, if you do a specific Google search for "1 US Cup flour = ? grams" you'll find it. (For me? All-purpose plain flour varies, depending on humidity and if I bother to sift, between 110 and 120 gms.)
    I hope that helps!

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  16. Best butter cream frosting recipe I've tried! thanks for posting.

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  17. I used this recipe for my daughters 2nd birthday cupcake party! It was deee-lish! I had to put alot more powdered sugar then what the recipe called for, but boy was it good. I got lots of compliments on the frosting! :o)

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  18. We made this icing for the cupcakes for my son's wedding and it was perfect! It looks like a pro made it. I found that 6 cups of icing sugar was enough though. Thanks so much for the great recipe.

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  19. This was quick and easy...tastes great... I substituted the vanilla for almond extract and added a little butter extract (clear) and everyone loved it...Topped a Red Velvet cupcake that had a philly cream cheese filling...Awesome...Jamie

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  20. could you add fruit? like strawberries?

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  21. omg just found this blog and i must say your doing a great job and just making life easy for me, i have been looking for this recipes for ages, only if i found u earlier:)

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  22. do you know how to make eggless cupcakes?

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  23. I just tried this today and it's delicious. Made it for some cupcakes and YUM. I colored it light blue and it turned out adorable with red sprinkles :)

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  24. Big hit here... I added an oreo cookie in the middle and topped each cupcake with a little crushed oreo too... So Yummy.. Thanks

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  25. Thank you for such a tasty and simple to make recipe. Awesome, Is powdered sugar icing sugar?

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  26. finally! a tasty and solid icing! (:
    i fail at icing, but this came out perfect and tasty!
    but, my batch number two was a bit runny. ROOM TEMPERATURE IS SO IMPORTANT! ;)

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  27. Love that this is egg free! Sure, that's a lot of butter, but it's frosting 2 dozen cupcakes. If you only eat one (or two, or three;) it's not doing any damage. Gotta live it up now and then! This is super easy and so much better than canned! Thanks for sharing!

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  28. Just made it. I used a vanilla bean instead of extract. It turned out really good.

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  29. making cupcakes for my friends birthday. i dont have icing yet but this came up right away under google! Im sure it will taste great thanks so much

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  30. Vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream mini cupcakes for my son to take to school, red liners, red sprinkles and a gobstopper on top. They are gorgeous, and I didn't think I could do it. Great receipe, I'm so proud and thankful!!!

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  31. Yum thanks for this simple recipe. Sounds really great and can't wait to try it soon!

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  32. Very good. One thing to remember: I made sure the butter was room temperature. Unfortunately it is so hot (in the 90's) that the frosting was too soft! I put the frosting in the fridge to firm up and then stored the cupcakes in fridge. Thx for recipe :)

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  33. i don't know what i keep doing wrong but this is the second time i've tried this recipe and it's always gritty and runny. i've put it in the fridge to firm it up more but as soon as i go to frost the cakes, it just oozes down the tops.
    considering no one else has anything negative to say about this recipe, i am clearly a deficient cake maker.
    or something.
    good luck to everyone else.

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  34. Hi Stef,

    Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the buttercream frosting recipe. Hard to say what the problem is. Are you using enough butter (1 cup)? If you're trying to double or half the recipe, make sure you have the amounts right.
    Also, sometimes you need a little extra powdered sugar if the recipe is too runny, though you shouldn't need too much more than 8 cups.
    Good luck :)

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  35. Mine comes out to be like liquid not fluffy.

    Am i doing something wrong to the recipe

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  36. This frosting is amazing! At first I thought it was a misprint....6-8 cups of powdered sugar for 24 cupcakes, really? Most frosting recipes use 2-2 1/2 cups. There was some left over, but it got devoured on its own!

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  37. I have a question .. Does the frosting get hard? I would like to decorate using buttercream, but i would like to see the frosting harden.

    Jane.

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  38. i will try this recepie on saturday for some beautiful xmas cupcakes!!! i'm so exited it's my first time making icing from scratch!!!!

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  39. I tried the recipe yesterday night i did it just to tried if it was going to work cause i'm very bad in cooking. But it came out great i did the whole amount and it was a little too much for what i need it, but it was delicious. I love vanilla so i went for it and i put some drops of blue food coloring, my 3 years old daughter loved it. She was saying 'its a sweet sea mommy, it's beautiful' i put the rest of the icing, in the freezer i hope i can use it again for another cake. Can it be preserved this way or i need to through it away????? if any one has any idea, please let me know. thanks a lot for the recipe

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