Elevate your treats with this easy vanilla whipped buttercream frosting recipe with just simple steps to make a velvety-smooth frosting that adds a touch of vanilla goodness to your cakes and cupcakes.
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What is Whipped buttercream?
This whipped buttercream frosting is simply my lighter, less sweet version of the very popular and traditional buttercream frosting recipe.
Made primarily from butter and confectioners' sugar, the whipped version adds a higher content of heavy cream to make the frosting even more fluffy and creamy.
This perfectly textured whipped cream buttercream frosting is ideal for decorating all your cupcakes, layer cake, brownies, cheesecakes, and cookies. It's the recipe to remember for elevating all your desserts without needing a pastry degree."
Why we love this recipe
- Only 3 basic ingredients, butter, confectioner sugar and whipped cream.
- Easiest, fastest, and most foolproof frosting, perfect for baking beginners.
- Stable and hold its shape for a long time, perfect for birthday cakes, wedding cakes, piping cupcakes, smooth cakes, cake decorating and more.
- Easy to flavor to any taste (see recipe variations section).
More Whipped Frostings

Ingredients Notes
- Butter: Use unsalted butter with at least 80% fat and softened at room temperature, for a lightly salted version use semi-salted butter.
- Sugar: Use extra fin sugar like powdered sugar, icing sugar, or confectioners sugar. Don't use granulated sugar, as it may result in a grainy buttercream with a not-at-all-smooth texture.
- Heavy cream: You can use heavy cream or heavy whipping cream.
- Vanilla: As an option, pure vanilla extract adds a delicious flavor to this plain frosting, or you can use the seeds of a vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste.
Useful tools: Use preferably a stand mixer, for the power of the mixer or even an electric mixer perfect for small quantities.
You will find the quantities and complete instructions in the recipe card at the end of the page.

How to Make Less Sweet Whipped Buttercream Frosting
Beat the butter
- Place softened butter cut into pieces in the mixing bowl of an electric mixer or in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
- Whip on high speed until butter turns white for about 3-5 minutes, it increases in volume and is very creamy with a fluffy consistency.
Tip: Beat the softened butter for at least 5 minutes. The more you beat the butter, the whiter the buttercream will be.


Add confectioner's sugar
- Add the sifted confectioner's sugar to the creamy butter in batches while leaving the mixer running at medium speed and until incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract and heavy cream and whip on high speed for a further 5 minutes or so, until you have a fluffy buttercream frosting is thick and smooth.
*Classic buttercreams generally have 3-4 times more confectioners' sugar than butter, but here there's only twice and the texture remains creamy and firm.


Storage and Freeze instructions
In the fridge: Whipped buttercream can be stored in the fridge under plastic wrap or in an airtight container for up to a week. After refrigeration, allow it to come to room temperature before whipping again.
Room température: American buttercream is also known to be stable at room temperature for up to 48 hours, but always in a cool, sun-free place.
How to freeze: It can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container or in storage bags for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw completely before whipping again.

Recipes Variations
Add nut butter: Easily add nut butter like peanut butter, almond butter or others to have a delicious nutty flavor.
Fresh fruits: like fruit puree (rather than fruit coulis so as not to alter the texture) such as a strawberry puree, strawberry compote like in this strawberry buttercream, raspberry compote, blueberry compote, etc.
Cookie Crumbs: chocolate chip cookie crumbs, biscoff cookies, Oreo cookies, and more.
Natural flavors: Lemon juice, lemon extract and lemon zest, orange juice and other citrus fruits, or almond extract, rose water, almond blossom water.
Spreads: like chocolate Nutella spread, Lotus biscoff cookie butter spread, strawberry jam, lemon curd and more.
Chocolate version: Unsweetened cocoa powder or melted chocolate for a chocolate buttercream frosting.
Food coloring: To color the buttercream use gel food coloring, the purple neutralizes the yellow and gives a whiter cream.
Tips for this recipe
- Take the butter out of the fridge 30 minutes before! The texture of the butter is important, it must not be cold otherwise the cream will not be homogeneous or melted otherwise the cream will be runny.
- Beat the butter for at least 3-5 minutes! The butter should be whipped until it increases in volume and has a lighter color.
- Sift the sugar! For a better blend of all ingredients.
- Beat on high speed for at least 5 minutes! When sugar is well incorporated add another 5 minutes of mixing to whiten the buttercream.
- Finish with the paddle attachment! After so much mixing at high speed, a lot of air has been incorporated into the buttercream and to get a smooth texture it should be mixed gently for at least 2 minutes.
Buttercream alternatives
This buttercream is certainly the easiest recipe, but it's also the simplest because it's made from 2 ingredients: butter and sugar, which makes for a rather fatty and sweet frosting.
Here are some other frosting recipes for a change from classic buttercream:
Lighter: Choose a simple whipped cream chantilly or a mascarpone whipped cream, which is my ultimate choice between firm and a light and fluffy texture. (With just cocoa powder you can make this chocolate mascarpone frosting)
Softer: Meringue-based buttercreams are more fluffy and less sweet in the mouth like this Swiss meringue Buttercream , Italian meringue Buttercream or French Buttercream (Easily to flavor like this white chocolate Swiss buttercream)
More intense and rich: With chocolate ganache-based frostings, such as milk chocolate ganache and white chocolate ganache.
For novice bakers: Diplomat cream, a combination of pastry cream and whipped cream, or German buttercream, also known as crème mousseline.

FAQ - Frequently Asked Question
We differentiate the two by their composition in ingredients, one is made of sugar mixed with cream cheese or heavy whipping cream, while buttercream is a mixture of sugar and butter.
Both frostings are quite similar in texture, but the buttercream has a firmer texture that is more convenient to use for topping and decorating cakes.
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Print
Whipped Buttercream Frosting
- Total Time: 20 minutes
Description
Easy whipped vanilla buttercream frosting recipe, to fill and smooth a 2 tiers 6 inch/15 cm cake or decorating 12 cupcakes.
Ingredients
- 200 g (1 cup) Butter - unsalted and softened
- 350 g (3 ¼ cups) Powdered sugar - sifted icing sugar
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) Heavy cream - full-fat
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 pinch salt - optional
Instructions
- Place the softened butter cut into pieces in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk at high speed for about 3-5 minutes until you obtain a smooth and creamy mixture.
- Lower the speed of the mixer and add the sifted confectioner's sugar in several batches until completely incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract and full-fat heavy cream and beat on high speed for a further 5 minutes until you have a smooth, voluminous frosting.
- Beat the whipped buttercream with a rubber spatula or the flat spatula of your stand mixer for 2 minutes at low speed to evacuate air bubbles and obtain a smooth frosting.
- Use immediately on your cakes or store in the fridge under plastic wrap.
Notes
Conservation: 1 week in the refrigerator and up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Category: frosting, icing,
- Cuisine: american
Nutrition
- Calories: 101
- Sugar: 23
- Sodium: 15
- Fat: 1
- Saturated Fat: 1
- Carbohydrates: 23
- Cholesterol: 3
Keywords: vanilla buttercream, american buttercream, easy buttercream, buttercream frosting
Hello,
I would like to make a chocolate buttercream, how much chocolate should I add to this recipe? Should I use powdered or melted chocolate? Thank you for your answer
Hello, yes it's possible to make it in chocolate with melted chocolate or cocoa powder.
Hello can this frosting be put under sugar paste please?
Yes, it's a stable enough cream to fill a sugar-paste cake or as a covering frosting before applying the sugar paste.
Hello, if we keep the buttercream in the fridge, the day we want to use it to make cupcakes, do we have to beat it again? Thank you for your answer.
Yes, because it will harden in the fridge and to make it smooth you'll need to whip it with a mixer.
Really excellent, I followed it to the letter and it's perfect, thank you for your explanations.
Thank you very much for your feedback
I enjoyed it a lot, thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your feedback ❤️
Can we use don dairy whipping cream?
Hello yes, considering the small amount of whipped cream you don't risk messing up the recipe by using non-dairy whipped cream, just it must have a good percentage of fat equivalent to dairy whipped cream.