The Best Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
This is The Best Vanilla Buttercream Frosting! It’s rich and creamy, and is super easy to whip up. It pipes beautifully, and is the perfect way to finish off all of your cakes and cupcakes!
We celebrated our daughter’s fifth birthday last week and even as I type this, I find myself still sitting here in a state of denial!
It seems like just yesterday I was sharing a tutorial on how to make her 1st birthday smash cake. But in reality, it was actually FOUR years ago!!!
When people say “the days are long but the years are short,” that is the absolute truth. I sure wish time would slow down with these babies of mine.
Our princess’s request for her birthday cake was a “pink cake with a ballerina on top.”
I was able to provide the pink frosting just fine, but after realizing my construction efforts are pretty subpar, I turned to Etsy for a ballerina cake topper. Which was GORGEOUS by the way! If you’re interested, this is the one I ordered.
As for the frosting, I made this one (and dyed it pink). This is my go-to frosting recipe, and in my opinion, is The BEST Vanilla Buttercream Frosting ever!
I’ve been making it for AGES so I’m surprised I haven’t shared it before!
I have another recipe for buttercream here on my site that I use a lot as well, but this one right here is my favorite because it doesn’t require shortening, and it’s SO SO delicious!
I add plenty of vanilla to give it really good flavor and it pipes onto cakes and cupcakes so well, and holds its shape beautifully! I think y’all are really going to love it!
If you share this Vanilla Buttercream Frosting or any other recipe from my site on Instagram, tag #belleofthekitchen so I can see what you’ve made! And follow me @thebelleofthekitchen, too!
Recipe: The Best Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks),, softened
- 4.5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 4-5 Tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk
Instructions
- Beat the softened butter over medium speed with an electric mixer until soft and creamy. Continue to beat over medium speed as you gradually add the powdered sugar. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed to fully incorporate all of the sugar.
- Once butter and sugar have come together, add the vanilla. Beat in the heavy cream or milk 1 Tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. This frosting is perfect for piping, or for simply spreading onto cakes and cupcakes!
Notes
If you like this recipe for The Best Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, then you might also like:
Skinny Chocolate Cake
Tastes great.
My granddaughter loves buttercream so in teaching her how to bake, this was her first recipe. Solo.
She did great, with tips from me. It turned out delicious.
I think that it was very good,my only concern was that it was a little sweet and there is to much milk but other that that it was really good!
My mother always made her buttercream frosting with a little coffee to take the edge off the sweetness
Greetings all,
Today my daughter 6th earthday. She was cupcakes at school with her classmates. I shall attempting to make this recipe based on all the reviews and definitely looking forward to kindergarten reviews. Got to leave up. Thanks for sharing each of help other experiences in kitchen my joyful. Blesses to each of you ..
I use this recipe pretty regularly and it’s definitely the best for buttercream so far. If you guys want to add a little more awesome to it, just add a row of Oreos that have been blended and you automatically have some cookies and cream frosting.
Taste is amazing. But how do you keep your frosting from breaking and melting after the cake is decorated? Did i over mix?
Your cake was probably still warm.
You kinda can’t over mix the more you mix the more fluffy you might have added some thing wrong or it got to cold or to hot.. it happens maybe try it again and see what happens..
Can you use salted butter? Does it have to be unsalted?
Wait for the cake to cool down completely before frosting
Don’t ice a hot cake
Using this to make my daughters sunflower cupcakes for her birthday! Wish me luck! It’s my first time doing anything like this!
Good luck!
does it have to be refrigerated?,, i dont refrigerate my fondant cakes, i would love to try this as a filling.
thank you
Hello! For the record I’m not a baker, but wanted to make adorable unicorn cupcakes for my daughters 4th birthday (slightly out of my wheelhouse maybe!). I used your recipe and it is hands down the best (and easiest) buttercream I’ve ever had. So this is a thank you! You have my appreciation!
Do you prefer milk or the heavy whipping cream?
Heavy cream if I have it!
Baking a chocolate mayonnaise cake tomorrow???? i cant wait to try this gorgeous frosting. It looks really fluffy airy and light. Just what i was looking for. I’ll let u know how it goes for me. And thank you Ashlyn for sharing.☺????
Delicious!!!! It’s a perfect vanilla buttercream! Thank you for sharing 🙂
I made this and it turned out so fluffy and extremely delicious!! It was also so easy to make and made a perfect amount for my cup cakes!!
So I looove to bake but I have never found the perfect tasting and easy to make buttercream frosting…until I tried this recipe!!!! So easy to make and I got a fluffy and creamy delicious frosting! This will be my go to buttercream frosting recipefrom now on!
K
How far in advance can you make this?
Does it refridgerate well?
Yes!
Absolutely sensational! Added yellow food colouring for son’s transformer cake. Thank you!!
I pray that I have this wonderful opportunity w/my soon to be 21yr ONLY daughter! As fate would have it, she graduates from college @ d same damn time! December 2019! PLEASE GUYS/GALS, I welcome magnificent recipes for lamb and lobster tails also. Thx a million!
This was fantastic! Have you experimented with other flavors?
Hi Lauren! Glad you’re enjoying the frosting! Chocolate and raspberry might be on the horizon!
Just can’t wait to try this buttercream recipe!! Yum Yum!
Can this frosting be made the day before and put in fridge?
Yes!