This 5-ingredient Peanut Butter Frosting is the perfect buttercream for all of your cakes and cupcakes. It is light, fluffy, silky smooth, sweet but not too sweet. You may want to eat it straight from the bowl!
This creamy peanut butter frosting is an American Style Buttercream Frosting. But like all of my frosting and buttercream recipes, this one is definitely not too sweet and is full of delicious peanut butter flavor.
While it’s perfectly fine to eat this peanut butter buttercream frosting by the spoonful straight from the bowl, it’s even better in this Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake or these Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes.
What you’ll need
All it takes is 5 ingredients and a maximum of 15 minutes to yield the creamiest and tastiest peanut butter frosting. See the recipe card at the end of this post for the full ingredient list, quantities and instructions.
- An equal amount by weight of butter and creamy peanut butter is used.
- Heavy whipping cream is added to make the frosting fluffier and lighter.
- Just 1 ½ cup of powdered sugar is used for the entire batch. This yields a sweet but not cloyingly sweet frosting.
- Vanilla extract is added to enhance the flavor.
Step by Step Instructions
This recipe is extremely easy, but I’ve included step by step instructions with photos below so you can follow along and see the texture of the buttercream in each stage.
- Add all the ingredients to the stand mixer bowl. You could also use a large mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer.
- Stir to incorporate at first. Then increase the mixer speed gradually to high.
- Scrape down the side of the bowl as necessary.
- Continue beating until the frosting is lighter in color and fluffy.
Baker’s Tips
- This peanut butter frosting recipe yields just over 5 cups of frosting and is enough to cover up to a 3-layer 8” cake or about 18 cupcakes generously. You could probably frost 24 cupcakes if you don’t pile the frosting too high like I usually do.
- If you want a stiffer buttercream, you can add more powdered sugar. But I find this frosting will pipe perfectly fine.
- If the frosting seems a bit runny, you can refrigerate to let it stiffen up slightly before piping instead of adding more sugar.
What kind of peanut butter to use in this recipe?
I use Skippy Honey Peanut Butter for this recipe. This is pretty much what we exclusively have at home. This is not sponsored at all whatsoever by Skippy. We just like it. Some things to take into consideration:
- Skippy honey PB is a little sweet already from the honey, so if you’re using a different type or brand of peanut butter, you may want to give it a taste and adjust the sugar to your taste.
- This PB is labeled as natural peanut butter, so I will venture to say that using another brand of natural peanut butter or homemade peanut butter should work.
- I can attest that the Skippy PB I use does separate sometimes at the top of the jar when you first open it. But it does not separate as much as some other natural peanut butter I’ve seen at the store.
- Since I haven’t tested this recipe with any other brand of natural peanut butter, I recommend either sticking with Skippy or using a commercial brand of creamy peanut butter that doesn’t separate to be safe.
- I don’t recommend using chunky peanut butter in this recipe especially if you’re going to pipe it since the peanut chunks could get stuck in the pastry tips.
Swiss Meringue peanut butter buttercream version
I also made a Swiss Meringue buttercream version of this peanut butter frosting. For every cup of Swiss buttercream, I added:
- ¼ cup of peanut butter
- Plus 1 tablespoon of peanut butter powder to kick up the flavor.
The Swiss meringue version yields an extremely silky frosting but I thought the peanut butter flavor wasn’t as strong as the American buttercream version.
I’m not planning to perfect this version because I actually prefer the American style buttercream version, and it’s so easy to make! But if you are a die hard Swiss buttercream fan, I would suggest increasing the amount of PB or PB powder when you make it.
I picked up the PB powder at Sprouts and it looks like you can get it from Target too.
Storage
This peanut butter frosting contains butter and cream, so it should be kept refrigerated if not used right away. This frosting will keep in the refrigerator up to a week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Before using the frosting, make sure to let it come to room temperature, then re-whip until light and fluffy.
Ways to use this peanut butter frosting
- Make cookie sandwiches with these Peanut Butter Cookies
- Add it on top of Brownies
- Turn Banana Bread into a decadent dessert
- Replace the chocolate frosting on this Mini Chocolate Cake
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📖 Recipe card
Peanut Butter Frosting
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 oz unsalted butter (3 sticks, 1 ½ cup, room temperature, cubed, 340 g)
- 12 oz creamy peanut butter (1 ⅓ cup, 340 g)
- 6 tablespoon heavy whipping cream (90 g)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar (150 g)
Instructions
- Add softened cubed butter, peanut butter, cream, vanilla extract and powdered sugar to the stand mixer bowl.
- Stir to incorporate all of the ingredients, then increase the mixer speed gradually to high and beat until the frosting is lighter in color and fluffy, about 5 – 15 minutes
Notes
- This recipe yields approximately 5 cups of frosting.
- Enough to frost an 8 inch 3-layer cake or about 18 cupcakes generously.
- You could probably frost 24 cupcakes without piling the frosting too high.
- If you want a stiffer buttercream, you can add more powdered sugar. But I find this frosting will pipe perfectly fine. If the frosting seems a bit runny, you can refrigerate to let it stiffen up slightly before piping.
Nutrition
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The perfect creamy peanut butter frosting. I can’t wait to use this on some chocolate cakes I have frozen.
Yay! It’s sooo good 🙂