The best vanilla frosting made easy with this 5 ingredient recipe that’s the perfect topping for almost any cupcake flavor. With delicious vanilla flavor, this frosting is sure to please any crowd.
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In under 30 minutes, enjoy the perfect easy vanilla cupcake frosting that only requires 5 ingredients to make. With the neutral flavor of vanilla, this is the perfect frosting for nearly any flavor of cupcake.
If you’re making homemade birthday, anniversary, graduation, or holiday-themed cupcakes, look no further than this recipe for the best frosting to use.
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What You'll Learn In This Recipe
- How to make a light and fluffy buttercream base cupcake frosting.
- The secret ingredient to use in order to have vanilla bean seeds visible throughout the buttercream.
- Storage instructions for making the buttercream ahead of time.
For more tips like this, that level up your baking knowledge, grab my free ebook which teaches all about the best secrets to becoming a better baker.
Ingredients You Need
This frosting recipe is an American-style buttercream that is known for its light taste and smooth texture. The best buttercreams aren’t too sweet and have the perfect sugar-to-butter ratio.
Here are the ingredients you'll need for this vanilla cupcake buttercream frosting.
Unsalted butter: Before you begin making the buttercream, let your butter soften to room temperature. If you use salted butter instead of unsalted butter, make sure to adjust the amount of fine sea salt added to the frosting.
Confectioners’ sugar: Otherwise known as powdered sugar or icing sugar, this is the perfect sugar to achieve a light and smooth buttercream.
When adding the confectioners' sugar to your frosting, measure it first, then sift. Sifting ensures that the fine sugar doesn’t have any clumps when it’s added to the frosting.
Heavy cream: This ingredient helps thin out the buttercream. For the best and longest-lasting buttercream, make sure the heavy cream you’re using is as fresh as possible.
Fresh heavy cream will allow you to keep your frosting for up to 1 month after making it. If you can’t get your hands on heavy cream, you can also use half and half or whole milk instead.
Vanilla bean paste: The secret ingredient for achieving the prettiest-looking buttercream frosting. Because vanilla beans are typically pricey, save some money and some time and use vanilla bean paste. This will still give you the beautiful vanilla seed specks and the lovely vanilla bean flavor throughout the cupcake frosting.
Fine sea salt: Salt is an important ingredient to help balance out the sweetness of the cupcake frosting. Make sure your salt is fine, so you don’t have large granules of it in your frosting.
Check out the recipe card below for the full details on ingredient quantities.
How To Make This Recipe
Here’s how to make vanilla cupcake frosting that will knock your socks off.
1. This vanilla cupcake frosting recipe starts by fitting a paddle attachment to a stand mixer. Add in your softened butter and turn the machine to medium-high speed until the butter is light and fluffy. This should take roughly 2 to 3 minutes.
As you need to, using a silicone spatula, scrape down the sides of the mixer to make sure all the butter is evenly whipped.
2. Turn your mixer down to medium-low speed and add the confectioners’ sugar in ½ cup (115 gram) increments. Before adding the next batch of confectioners’ sugar, allow the previous scoop to fully incorporate into the butter.
Repeat this process until you’ve used up all of the confectioners’ sugar. Be sure to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl to ensure that the ingredients are mixing completely.
3. Once the sugar and butter are mixed, add in the heavy cream, vanilla bean paste, and fine sea salt. Let these ingredients incorporate on medium-low speed.
4. Once everything is combined, bump the mixer up to medium-high. Allow the mixture to beat for another 5 minutes until it becomes light and fluffy.
This is the secret step for the best vanilla cupcake frosting texture.
5. Shut off your mixer and deflate the buttercream by hand with a silicone spatula. To deflate the buttercream, press the buttercream around the side of the mixer bowl to smooth your frosting and remove any large air bubbles.
Deflating helps the frosting pipe smoothly.
6. Scoop your frosting into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 1M piping tip. Pipe about 4 tablespoons of frosting onto each cupcake.
You can now enjoy your cupcakes, or store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. If you are serving the cupcakes from the fridge, allow them to come back to room temperature before serving.
If you will not be eating the cupcakes for a while, place the frosted cupcakes on a baking sheet in the freezer. Allow the cupcakes to freeze until the frosting is completely frozen.
Next, wrap the frosted cupcakes in plastic wrap and place them in an airtight container. The cupcakes can last like this for up to 2 months in the freezer.
Expert Tips
- Vanilla buttercream icing can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month as long as the heavy cream you used is fresh. Before piping, allow the buttercream to come back to room temperature.
- In order to achieve a light and pillowy buttercream frosting, be sure to beat the mixture on medium-high speed after the ingredients have been incorporated. Don’t be tempted to shorten this time if you want the best airy texture in your buttercream frosting.
- After frosting the cupcakes, you can store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. When serving them, allow the frosted cupcake to rise to room temperature first.
- If you want to dye your cupcake frosting, you can use liquid or gel food coloring to add whatever bright color you desire. When adding in the food coloring, add 1 to 2 drops at a time after the confectioners' sugar has been mixed in, until you achieve your desired color.
- If you live in a particularly hot weather climate, you’ll likely notice the cupcake frosting becomes softer when it’s left at room temperature. If the buttercream frosting ever gets too runny to pipe, place it in the refrigerator for 5+ minutes to firm it up a bit. Just don’t leave it in the fridge too long, or it will be too hard to pipe.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, if you don’t have a piping bag, you can use an offset spatula to hand-frost your cupcakes. You can even make a fun swirl design with the offset spatula.
If you want your frosted cupcakes to last long term, you cannot store frosted cupcakes at room temperature. If you are planning to serve your cupcakes within 1 to 2 hours, then leaving them out is okay.
A few different ways for detecting that your frosting has gone bad include noticing a weird taste, foul odor, or any signs of discoloration or mold. If you notice any of these things, discard them immediately.
For a nice simple decoration, colorful sprinkles are great. For a more elegant but equally simple decoration, try gold sugar sprinkles. If you want, top your cupcakes with mini chocolate chips, an Oreo cookie, or a drizzle of caramel sauce.
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Vanilla Cupcake Frosting (5 Ingredients)
Equipment
- stand mixer or electric mixer
- piping bag
- piping tip
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 3 ½ cups confectioners' sugar measured then sifted
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions
- Add butter to a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 - 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the mixer as needed.
- Add confectioners' sugar ½ cup at a time to the mixer running on medium-low speed. Allow the confectioners' sugar to fully incorporate before adding in another ½ cup. Repeat until no confectioners' sugar remains. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the mixing bowl to ensure all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
- Add heavy cream, vanilla bean paste, and fine sea salt to the mixer and beat until combined. Set the mixer to medium-high speed and allow the buttercream to beat for an additional 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Deflate the buttercream by hand using a silicone spatula. Press the buttercream around the side of the mixer bowl until the frosting has smoothed and large air bubbles have been pushed out. This helps the buttercream pipe smoothly.
- Using a Wilton 1M piping tip, pipe about 4 tablespoons of frosting onto each of the 12 cupcakes. Eat immediately, or store frosted cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Allow the frosted cupcakes to come to room temperature before serving.
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