Buttercream Frosting Recipe (2024)

This is an excellent buttercream recipe! So much better than the powdered sugar heavy version I used to make. The consistency is light & fluffy while the flavor is sweet but not too sweet. I also made the chocolate version with Guittard bittersweet chocolate - amazing! Note that both the butter and heavy cream need to be at room temperature before you start. Also, it takes a long time to come back to room temp if you refrigerate overnight.

This is the recipe that I followed for years but with less butter and milk. I don't like the metallic taste of raw confectionery sugar so I tried the Food 52 technique: Melt the butter, mix it with the powdered sugar, salt, and milk in a stainless steel bowl. Set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water for 5 minutes, stirring from time to time. Remove the bowl from the water, add the vanilla, and beat until cool and fluffy. Set in a ice bath to cool and thicken faster. Much better!

I have also had really good results using freeze dried fruits to flavor buttercream frosting - freeze dried strawberries worked wonders for the pink "flavored" cake my stepson wanted for his birthday!

To flavor cakes, cookies, & frostings with freeze dried fruit, I prefer to buy the fruit in powdered form, which is very smooth with virtually no pieces of fruit. If I must crush the fruit myself, I put it in a zip lock bag and roll the sealed bag with a rolling pin until the fruit is pulverized. With frosting, I add the powder to taste. With cakes or cookies, I add about 1 ounce for every 1.5 cups of flour. The flavor and the color are great, except for cherries, which look gray in baked goods.

I have found that using organic butter, though more expensive, elevates the taste of the buttercream and is worth the higher price.

This is the frosting I grew up with and I’m happy to finally see it vindicated by the NYT after years of wondering why it never seemed to be enough!

This was the first buttercream recipe I loved. Not as cloying as other ones, and really easy to make. One batch will frost the top of a single layer 9" round cake generously, or two layers with about 5mm.

I suggest:- adding fresh ground pepper to the base recipe. - adding a tidge of instant espresso to the chocolate recipe- orange rind to flavour- almond extractGeneral imagination with the vanilla recipe as a base.

This makes a delicious Buttercream. It tastes great, looks good, is simple to make, uses only a few ingredients, and yields plenty. I especially like the latter because I tend to lay it on thick.

I have been making this recipe for over 50 years….simple and delicious!

Delicious frosting - not too sweet and cloying like so many butter creams. I had never beaten one so long and also I used Plugra butter - both of those adjustments made all the difference.

Cut up room temperature butter before hand blending it. Hand blender uses slower speeds than stand mixer.

Made this once and it was greasy and an exceptionally small amount. The second time was better- so a weight measurement for the sugar may be helpful. Also for Ms Bennett who can't find the icing recipe from the viennese bakery, try a Swiss buttercream.

Is it possible to make this without using cream?

I made pistachio frosting using the recipe and it worked well for me. I beat it in my Kitchenaid for a total of 5 minutes since I had to stop several times to scrape down the bowl.After making the frosting I added 1/2 cup of ground pistachios and a little green food coloring to oomph up it's "pistachioness" It was used to frost a spumoni cake (1 cherry layer, 1 chocolate layer).

Excellent recipe. I found the proportion of butter to confectioners sugar to be spot on. Will be making this again.

Awful from my perspective. I had to add about double the sugar the recipe called for to get frosting rather than sweetened grease.

This was light and airy and delicious, but for us it was just a little too salty. I’d recommend trying 1/4 tsp salt instead of 1/2 tsp

Too salty, use half the amount recommended, if you even use any. Like use 1/8 or 1/4 of the teaspoon. It’s really a pinch that you need or less than a pinch. Imagine yourself as the opposite of salt bae while you add salt to your buttercream. Is this still better too salty than most grocery store cakes? Yes!!! I’m just hypercritical of everything I make.

The best buttercream frosting I ever had was on a cake made in a Viennese bakery. It had no powdered sugar in it; it was lighter than air, a taste of heaven (probably Swiss or Italian). The bakery closed after many years and I have never found a recipe to match it. Confectioner's sugar frosting is too stiff and sandy for my liking, no matter what one does to it.

The best buttercream frosting I ever had was on a cake made at a Viennese bakery (probably an Italian or Swiss recipe). No confectioner's sugar in it; it was lighter than heaven and indescribably delicious, as was the cake. We all requested that cake for our birthdays until, sadly, the bakery closed. Never tasted anything like that again. Anything made with American powdered sugar in it is like eating stiff, overly sweetened sand. Nothing one can do to it can help it.

Made this recipe twice now - so so good! Perfect and everyone loved!!

I just found my forever buttercream recipe! So light and tasty - used Irish butter… thank you!

Really good and easy too. Fluffy and sweet. I made it once as written and once using coconut milk in place of the cream and coconut extract in place of the vanilla. Made just enough to frost two 9-inch rounds with a layer in between.

This is a wonderful recipe, but the buttercream is a little too sweet, and it didn’t provide enough for a multi layer cake. I doubled the recipe and cut back the sugar by 1/2 cup. I kept the salt close to as is and it was superb. Everyone loved it.

Okay, good for 24 cupcakes!