Quick Buttercream Frosting

By Addie

You may use all butter in this quick buttercream, but using vegetable shortening makes a frosting that will be a little firmer in warmer temperatures. Also, using the optional meringue powder, while not necessary, will help your frosting holds its shape. This amount of frosting is fine to frost the top of a 9" x 13" cake. If you're frosting a layer cake, double the recipe to have enough frosting to pipe decorations.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter or non-transfat vegetable shortening (we used 1/4 cup of each)
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder, optional, for "holding power"
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2-3 cups (10 to 12 ounces) confectioners' sugar or glazing sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons (1 to 2 ounces) milk

Preparation

Step 1

Cream the butter and/or shortening until fluffy. Beat in the salt, meringue powder, and the vanilla. Add the confectioners' or glazing sugar, 2 tablespoons of the milk, and beat well.

Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Adjust the consistency of the frosting as needed by adding more confectioners' sugar or milk. If you're not going to use the frosting right away, keep it at room temperature, covered, to prevent it from developing a dry crust. Yield: 2 1/2 cups.
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REVIEWS:

Could I make this into coconut buttercream by substituting coconut extract for the vanilla and coconut milk for the milk? REPLY: Exchanging the flavorings will work just fine. Go by taste. Coconut Milk may make the final icing grainy. Stay with regular milk, the flavor change should be able to do the whole job. Frank @ KAF.

Best Buttercream frosting that I have ever made...super easy, nice and fluffy, perfect for piping onto cupcakes. I made a plain batch, and then a lemon batch by substituting fresh lemon juice for the milk.

Tasty frosting. My cat's favorite recipe. He licked a half-dollar size bare patch on one cupcake before I caught him. The humans in the family enjoyed the rest of the frosted cupcakes.

This is my go to recipe! Have modified it a tad, but the ratios are great to produce a nicely rounded buttercream that doesn't taste too sugary. Thank you King Arthur!!!

This is a great tasting recipe and was pretty quick to make. I used all butter, since I rarely keep shortening on hand. If you plan to pipe icing on cupcakes, you may want to make a double batch. I barely had enough to ice 24 cupcakes.

I made this to accompany KAF's Tender White Cake (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tender-white-cake-recipe) and it turned out well, even without the meringue powder (couldn't find any locally). If you haven't tried this combo...you should!

I modified this recipe to make a coconut flavored frosting. I doubled the recipe and added 1/4c coconut milk powder (from KAF) and added a couple drops of coconut extract along with the vanilla. I used all butter. It worked beautifully! Nice subtle coconut flavor. Good texture. Even with all butter the frosting was very light colored, if you care about that kind of thing. This made a TON of frosting. Granted, I only used ~1/4in spread on cupcakes, but I frosted 28 cupcakes and still had over half the batch left. Great recipe!

This is a great tasting buttercream!

Very quick and easy- had to make two batches to frost 2 dozen cupcakes. Had a bit of a tang to the frosting- was it because of the meringue powder? I added more vanilla to the second batch and increased the butter and it wasn't as noticeable. Thanks for great recipes! REPLY:I am so glad this recipe hit the spot for those cupcakes! Yes, it could have been from the meringue powder. Meringue powder has sugar, egg white solids, edible gums, alum, salt, vanillin and calcium lactate. Happy baking! Elisabeth

star rating 06/12/2012
Sarah d from KAF Community
a nice easy quick buttercream, as stated. I cut back the sugar to 2 cups, and replaced the milk with cherry juice concentrate. I just used it as a spread, not sure how it would work for piping, but it seemed plenty fluffy and delicious.

I'm sorry for yet another post, but I forgot to say in my review below that I only used 2 C. of powdered sugar total and found that made plenty of frosting that was just sweet enough without being cloyingly sweet, as buttercream can often be. I mixed the vanilla and almond extracts together with 1 T. of milk in a small bowl before adding them to the mix, then added additonal milk, as needed, until the mixture was the consistency I wanted; maybe another 1 T. ? (I didn't measure). Since I am allergic to eggs and can't make any of the buttercream recipes using raw eggs, this will be my go-to frosting recipe from now on!

Oh my! The review I submitted yesterday didn't show up, only my 5-star rating, so here it is again: This recipe made enough to pipe a decorative swirl on top of 12 cupcakes, as shown in the above photo, with a little bit left over. At first, I thought I screwed it up by sifting the meringue powder with the powdered sugar, but a quick call to Irene at the baking hotline convinced me to go ahead. (Thanks again, Irene!) I made a few changes to the original recipe, but nothing that drastically changed it to the point of being a completely different recipe. For starters, I always sift powdered sugar to ensure there are no lumps in the finished frosting; used only 2 tsps. of meringue powder (2 tsps. being the equivalent of 1 egg white according to the label on the meringue tin); used half butter and half shortening as suggested in the recipe introduction; doubled the amount of vanilla because I used clear, which is imitation flavored and doesn't have the stronger flavor "real" vanilla does (and I wanted a white white frosting); and added 1/2 tsp. almond extract. I also use hi-ratio shortening for the first time and what a difference it made! No more greasy mouthfeel exhibited by regular white Crisco shortening (maybe that is something King Arthur Flour can offer in the future??). This was without a doubt the best white buttercream frosting I have ever made! I will certainly make it again for decorating cupcakes and hope it doubles well for filling and frosting layer cakes. Thanks, King Arthur Flour, for another 5-star recipe!

Tastes so good! Super easy to make. If your doing decorated cupcakes make sure you double the recipe. You will not be disappointed with this one, a keeper!

WAAAAYYYY too sugary!! Followed the recipe exactly... only subbed 2T cherry concentrate as directed by the cherry cupcake recipe. Made way too much for the cupcake recipe and so overpowered the cake in its sugary-ness that it made them unenjoyable. My six-year-old wouldn't eat them, if that tells you anything! Because it was fluffy with a nice texture, I will try again only I will make serious adjustments. REPLY: Sorry for the disappointment. This recipe does make a lot of frosting that can be stored in your refrigerator for future use (within a week or two). We'd love to hear about your adjustments to share with other who find this sweeter than expected. Irene @ KAF

This turned out well, and it really is very quick. It complimented my red velvet cupcakes nicely.

This is such an easy and tasty recipe! I have made this twice, once with Fiori di Sicilia and once with vanilla bean paste. Both were excellent. Thanks for the great recipe!

Have finally found the buttercream I've been looking for. I used half Smart Balance Original in the tub, and half non-hydrogenated shortening. Came out nice and the consistency was right where I wanted it. Used it to frost an 8 inch 2 layer gluten free chocolate cake mix from KAF. Delicious!!