Whip up a batch of Strawberry Buttercream in about 10 minutes for your cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. This super easy frosting is great for decorating and looks beautiful topping all your baked goods.
When you don’t have fresh strawberries or spare time to make reductions, this recipe creates a quick delicious buttercream you’ll love. Made with butter, or shortening if you prefer, it’s a take on a classic vanilla buttercream, but with strawberry flavoring. Add to that a few drops of pink food coloring and you’re ready to decorate.
Bring the butter to room temperature
For light and fluffy frosting, bring that butter to room temperature first, which allows it to mix thoroughly with the powdered sugar. When the butter is too cold, it doesn’t mix well, or get light and fluffy, however, too warm and the butter may separate. That won’t work either. So, room temperature it is. As mentioned before, you can also substitute the butter for shortening. Shortening is great for piping and tastes good, but my preference taste-wise is the butter. You can also go half-half.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter for a few minutes on high. You’ll see the color lighten up and it starts making that cool pattern from the beaters. Keep scraping the sides as you go.
Avoid the powdered sugar cloud
I learned the hard way to reduce the speed on the mixer before adding the powdered sugar. Once the powdered sugar has blended with the butter, kick the speed back up to high. This helps to aerate the frosting, making it fluffy. In fact, you can even see the tiny air bubbles if you look closely.
Once the butter and powdered sugar are mixed together, add the strawberry extract, a pinch of salt, and a few drops of pink food coloring. So pretty.
A little milk, or water, will likely be needed to thin the frosting out a bit, especially if you plan on piping it or spreading it over a cake. I used a Wilton piping tip 1M for this recipe. Add the milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency you want. For spreading on a cake, you’ll need it on the thinner side, but more of a medium thickness for piping flowers or swirls. It’s too thick if you see cracks or breaks in the fine edges.
Strawberries and chocolate go so well together that I paired them for this recipe. Try this Chocolate Vanilla Cupcakes recipe for a sure-fire hit at any party. I topped it off with a dollop of straight chocolate on top…who needs a cherry?
Strawberry Buttercream
Materials
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. strawberry extract
- pinch of salt
- few drops pink food coloring
- 3 tbsp. water or milk, as needed to thin
Instructions
- Make sure your butter is room temperature before starting. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter on high for a few minutes until light and fluffy.
- Turning the mixer to low, add the powdered sugar until mixed thoroughly. Add the extract, salt, and food coloring. Scrape the sides, then return the beaters to high.
- Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach desired consistency. Continue beating for another 3-5 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
For other frosting ideas, try this Mocha Frosting recipe using fun dual colors (I tell you how), or this Vanilla Buttercream Frosting that makes a large batch. Happy baking and thanks for stopping by my blog. Have a blessed day.
Copyright © Sweet Ordeal. All content and images are copyright protected. Do not use any images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, make sure to re-write the recipe in your own words and only list ingredients making sure to link back to this post for the original recipe and directions.