This super easy American style Vanilla Buttercream Frosting is made with just a few simple ingredients and is not cloyingly sweet! It is the perfect white frosting for your cupcakes and cakes, and is good enough to eat straight from the bowl (no judgements!).
I’m not typically a huge fan of American buttercream frosting because it’s always too sweet for my taste. The greasiness of low-quality store-bought buttercream almost made me a permanent skeptic, until today.
However, this not-too-sweet vanilla buttercream frosting has changed my mind. And I hope it will change your mind as well!
Making frosting at home means you can control the quality of the ingredients going into your homemade buttercream icing, real butter is a must obviously. If you can splurge, go for the best quality butter you can buy. And I promise you won’t be using a whole pound of powdered sugar in this recipe.
Table of Contents
What is American buttercream frosting?
American buttercream frosting is the easiest style of frosting to make and is also the most commonly used. The two main ingredients for this frosting are butter and powdered sugar, creamed together with vanilla or other flavorings to make a vanilla frosting or other flavor variations.
Unlike Swiss meringue buttercream, a typical American buttercream frosting contains a high ratio of sugar to butter. You’ll find most recipes have a 2:1 sugar to butter ratio, which means for every 8 oz of butter (2 sticks), you will use a whole pound of sugar. Yikes!
Some American buttercream recipes call for a sugar to butter ratio of 3:2 to reduce the sweetness but I’ve gone even further and flipped this ratio to 1:2, using just 1 part sugar to 2 parts butter by weight, making it significantly less sweet. I also use more heavy whipping cream to add volume and lightness.
Why you’ll love this recipe
- This vanilla frosting is an easy American buttercream frosting that has been modified to significantly reduce the amount of sugar, making it much less sweet.
- It requires just 5 simple ingredients that you can find at any grocery store.
- This is the best buttercream frosting that will go with any flavor cakes and cupcakes. It’s also great for making cookie sandwiches, filling macarons, or spreading over brownies
Ingredients and substitution
As always, you’ll find the complete list of ingredients and quantities in the recipe card at the end of this post. Below are some notes and substitution tips:
- Unsalted Butter – this is the main ingredient for buttercream frosting. If you can splurge, get the best quality butter for the best tasting buttercream. Don’t substitute salted butter or you’ll end up with really salty frosting.
- Cream – I used heavy cream to lighten the frosting and make it fluffier. Light whipping cream should work but I don’t recommend substituting milk in this recipe.
- Salt – just a pinch to cut through the sweetness and give this simple vanilla buttercream frosting more dimension.
- Vanilla – I used pure vanilla extract. You can use seeds from a vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste if you want to add little specks of vanilla bean to your frosting. Or add different extracts for flavor variations.
- Powdered sugar – or icing sugar is used here. Don’t substitute granulated sugar or you’ll risk getting grainy frosting.
Tools you’ll need
You should use a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer for this recipe. You could potentially make buttercream frosting by hand but it would require a lot of elbow grease and would take longer too.
How to make vanilla buttercream frosting
The following instructions, step-by-step photos, and tips are here to help you visualize how to make the recipe. You can always skip straight to the printable recipe card at the end of this post.
Add room temperature butter, cream, vanilla extract and salt to your stand mixer bowl. Sift the powdered sugar into the bowl.
Tip: sifting the powdered sugar is not absolutely necessary but it does help with clumping and make distributing the sugar more evenly.
Turn the mixer to “stir” to incorporate all of the ingredients. Then increase the mixer speed gradually to “high” and beat until white and airy.
Baker’s Tips
- Let the butter come to room temperature before making buttercream. But don’t let it become too soft and runny. About 30 minutes to an hour will soften it enough.
- Cutting up the butter into smaller cubes will help it soften quicker and more evenly. This will also help it incorporate faster when beating.
- You don’t need to beat the butter first in this recipe but once all the ingredients are mixed together, you will need to beat it until it’s light and fluffy.
- Don’t skip the salt, the recipe doesn’t call for much but it’s an important ingredient. It helps cut through the sweetness and the taste of cornstarch in the powdered sugar as well as give the buttercream another flavor dimension.
Variations
This vanilla American buttercream frosting is the perfect base recipe to create all kinds of amazing frosting flavors.
- Stir in crushed Oreos to make Oreo frosting.
- Beat in creamy peanut butter to make real peanut butter frosting.
- Add freeze dried blueberry or blueberry jam to make blueberry frosting, change up the flavor with raspberry or strawberry too!
- Use different flavor extracts or citrus zest to open up even more possibilities.
- Use coconut cream or coconut milk instead of heavy cream to make coconut frosting!
Storage
This easy buttercream frosting can be stored in the refrigerator if made ahead for up to a week. Allow it to come to room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour and re-whip until fluffy before using it.
If you have leftovers, don’t throw it out, freeze it in an airtight container for up to 3 months. You can thaw it at room temperature and re-whip until fluffy before using it.
FAQs
Since this vanilla frosting doesn’t contain a lot of powdered sugar, you might worry that it will not hold up well. But fear not, I used this vanilla buttercream on these vanilla cupcakes and took them to the zoo for a little one’s birthday party. They held up nicely all day in the California sun. The frosting did get soft but it didn’t melt off the cupcakes.
However, I don’t recommend leaving frosted cupcakes and cakes out all day in the sun. It is always preferable to refrigerate them and take them out just half an hour before serving, or at least store them in a cool area of the house.
Did you start out with softened and not melted butter? During very hot months, butter could go from softening to melting quickly, this could make your frosting a bit runnier than it should. Just pop it in the fridge to set for 15-30 minutes before piping.
Absolutely! My preferred way to add color naturally is to use freeze dried fruit, but this will also add flavor. If you just want a simple vanilla frosting in a different color, simply use gel food coloring, a little goes a long way.
This recipe will make about 3 ¼ cups of vanilla buttercream frosting.
About 3 cups of American buttercream frosting will be enough to generously frost a batch of a dozen chocolate cupcakes, or a 6” two-layer vanilla cake. It is also enough to lightly cover an 8” two-layer cake with a thin layer of frosting on the side (naked cake style).
If you want to frost a full-size cake completely, from 8” up to 10”, you’ll need about 4 – 5 cups of buttercream. This recipe can be easily scaled up to make more. I give the modifications in the note section of the recipe card.
While typical American buttercream frosting is okay to keep at room temperature because it is stabilized with a lot of sugar. This particular version has much less sugar and would be safer refrigerated when not being served within a day.
More frostings to try
- Whipped chocolate frosting
- Chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream
- Cream cheese frosting
- Strawberry cream cheese frosting
- Coconut whipped cream
Hungry for more?
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 oz unsalted butter, 3 sticks, 340 g, room temperature
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar, 150 g, sifted
- 6 tablespoon heavy whipping cream
- 1 ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- A big pinch of salt
Instructions
- Add butter, cream, vanilla extract and salt to the stand mixer bowl.
- Sift powdered sugar into the bowl.
- Stir to incorporate all of the ingredients, then increase the mixer speed gradually to high and beat until the frosting is white and fluffy, about 5 – 15 minutes.
Notes
- Let the butter come to room temperature before making buttercream. About 30 minutes to an hour will soften it enough without being too soft.
- Buttercream can be stored in the refrigerator. Thaw at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour and re-whip until fluffy before using.
- This recipe makes about 3 ¼ cups of buttercream, enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes or a 2-layer 6” cake, and also lightly cover a 2-layer 8” cake with a thin layer of frosting on the side.
- To fully frost a regular size (8” and up) 2-layer cake, you’ll want about 4 – 5 cups of frosting. You’ll want to modify the recipe to:
- 16 oz unsalted butter (452 g)
- 2 cup powdered sugar (200 g)
- 8 tablespoon heavy whipping cream (½ cup)
- 2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- A big pinch of salt
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I have used your recipe multiple times and we love it! But it just occurred to me that there is no specific attachment mentioned to use on the stand mixer. Is the whisk attachment the best? Or paddle?
Hi Kate, sorry about that. I always use the whisk attachment for my frosting, as pictured in the post 🙂
I gave this buttercream frosting a try and came out very nice. I like the taste and it was easy to work with. I made few minor adjustments, reduced the heavy whipping cream to only 2 tablespoons, and didn’t add any salt. I would recommend the recipe!
This didn’t turn out for me. I weighed everything out exactly as you have stated. (I used the grams for the powdered sugar and cocoa powder) To me all it tasted like was cocoa powder. I tried to fix it, but then the texture was all wrong. Very disappointed. Will need to look somewhere else and try again.
Hi Christi, thanks for giving it a try and I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.
How much sugar do we add if we use already sweet non dairy whipping cream for this recipe?
Perhaps reduce the sugar by 2-3 tablespoons.
IS this enough to frost a 9 by 13 inch cake??
For a 1 layer 9×13? I would think so, yes.
Hi,
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I am making the chocolate cake now, and wanted to try this simpler frosting. I’m curious about the amount of butter. The buttercream recipe I have calls for twice as much sugar and only 1/2 cup butter. I would definitely prefer something less sweet, but 3 sticks is a lot of butter…
The Swiss buttercream calls for granulated sugar and the American buttercream calls for powdered sugar. The volume measurement for these two type of sugar are completely different, you will need to compare the gram measurement to see that the sugar content isn’t twice as much. This American buttercream is not very sweet when compared to other American buttercream that calls for 4 cups of powdered sugar. You can always try less sugar to your taste, but you may end up with a runny buttercream. I still prefer the Swiss version for that chocolate cake, it’s worth the extra effort. Let me know what you end up doing!
Any substitutes for heavy whipping cream? Don’t have it at home right now.
Hi Ana, there is no substitute for heavy cream. You might try milk to lighten and loosen the buttercream, but it won’t give you the body and fluffiness that cream does. I have not actually tried making this buttercream with milk so I don’t know for sure how it will turn out, but I would suggest using half as much milk first to see how the texture comes out. I worry it may be runny if you use all 6 tablespoons of milk. Once the buttercream has been beaten well, you can decide whether you want to add the rest of the milk or not.
Good day
This recipe looks great as I am not a fan of traditional american buttercream. One thing I am concerned abt is the use of double cream when the cake will be left out of the fridge for a long period after decorating. We are always told to keep anything with cream in refrigerated. Can you please advise?
Hi Clareen, typical American buttercream always has either milk or cream so it should be kept refrigerated for the most part. Especially this version, with a whole lot less sugar, if left out all day the cream will be very soft. I do recommend keeping it refrigerated and take out just a few hours before serving instead of leaving it out all day long. If you’re making a wedding cake that has many tries and needs to be out, this may not be the best option.
Hmmm, it looks nice but I’m a little apprehensive to try since there’s so little sugar in it. I dislike very sweet american buttercream too, but this seems like it would be too buttery tasting, which isn’t great either. I think I will wait and see what the reviews say when others have made it before giving it a try. I hope it’s good, as I’m still after the best buttercream recipe.
I totally understand your apprehension, I would suggest you go with Swiss buttercream instead cuz it’s still my favorite kind of buttercream. However, if you ever decide to try, just note that the longer you beat the buttercream to incorporate more air into it, the fluffier and creamier it becomes, and I think that makes a difference in it being “too buttery”.