Chocolate Buttercream Recipe
This classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe is the only chocolate buttercream recipe that you will ever need. It tastes amazing, pipes beautifully, and has been our go-to chocolate buttercream for years!
You are going to LOVE how easy this chocolate frosting is to make. Throw that canned chocolate frosting in the trash, it won't taste good to you anymore!
Table of Contents
How to Make Chocolate Buttercream
This chocolate buttercream recipe comes together in no time! You can find the full, printable frosting recipe below. This is an American Buttercream, meaning that it consists primarily of butter, powdered sugar, flavorings, milk, and in this case, cocoa powder as well.
It makes a great chocolate filling, frosting, and pipes great too!
- Add softened butter to the mixing bowl and mix on low to medium speed until smooth. Add vanilla extract and blend into the softened butter. Add confectioners sugar, salt, and unsweetened cocoa powder.
- Add most of the milk. Begin mixing at low speed so you won't have a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen.
- Continue to mix adding remaining milk until desired consistency is reached.
- It may take 5 to 6 minutes to reach the smoothness and consistency you like. It will take longer if using a hand mixer. As you mix, the frosting will become very smooth. You can add additional milk (1 Tablespoon at a time) if the frosting is too thick or additional powdered sugar if too soft.
What Cakes Taste Great with Chocolate Frosting?
This Classic Chocolate Buttercream is silky smooth, has a fantastic chocolate flavor, and it is the perfect complement to SO many flavors of cakes and cupcakes!
We love it as a filling or frosting for so many of our cake recipes! Some of our favorites are Marble Cake, Yellow Cake, and scratch Chocolate Cake, but there are so many more great options!
Pipeable Chocolate Buttercream
This Chocolate Frosting recipe should give you a nice medium consistency. This makes it perfect for piping.
Whether you're making buttercream ruffles, buttercream roses, or piping pretty scrolls or borders, this frosting couldn't be simpler to work with.
You'll have a bit of wiggle room when it comes to the amount of sugar and liquid. For a thicker frosting, mix in more confectioners sugar.
For a softer frosting, add a bit more milk. I also prefer to use whole milk rather than skim or 1% as it gives a richer flavor and a lighter crust when it sets.
If you'd like to learn more about simple buttercream piping techniques, check out some of our free tutorials: Piping Basics: Petal and Ruffle Tips, Piping Basics: Round Tips, Piping Basics: Star Tips.
Other Chocolate Frostings to Try...
We have a couple of other delicious chocolate frostings in our recipes section!
Our Fluffy Chocolate Buttercream recipe is similar to this classic chocolate buttercream, as it is a crusting recipe which is great for piping. The difference is that it contains shortening, which makes it more heat resistant.
It's always nice to have a heat friendly option for those hot summer days. Just remember that no frosting is 100 percent heat-proof. Shortening based frostings will hang in there for a bit longer though! You can find the recipe here: Fluffy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.
Next, if you are looking for something even more rich, you will also love our Chocolate Ganache Frosting in the Recipes section! If you've never tried ganache, it is a decadent mixture of chocolate and cream. Hop on over for the details!
More Recipes for the Chocolate Lovers!
If you love chocolate cakes and frostings, don't miss our full roundup of favorite chocolate cake and frosting recipes!!
These are SO delicious and we have a great variety in this roundup of chocolate fillings and frostings, scratch chocolate cakes, doctored chocolate cake mix recipes, and favorite chocolate cake and frosting pairings!
Best Chocolate Cakes and Frostings
Enjoy the Recipe
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
The most delicious and simple Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe! This chocolate frosting pipes great also.
Ingredients
- 3 sticks (339g) unsalted butter, softened (do not soften butter in the microwave)
- 7 cups (805g) confectioners sugar (Adjust slightly up or down to your liking) *See Notes
- 1 cup (82g) unsweeteded cocoa. Measure, then sift.
- ¾ cup (180g) milk -Add slowly, stop when desired consistency is reached. (Add a bit more if needed).
- 2 teaspoons (12) vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon (6g) salt
Instructions
- Add butter and mix on low to medium speed until smooth. Add vanilla and blend into the butter. Add powdered sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.
- Add most of the milk. Begin mixing at low speed so you won't have a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen.
- Continue to mix adding remaining milk as needed. It may take 5 to 6 minutes to reach the smoothness and consistency you like. It will take longer if using a hand mixer. As you mix the frosting will become very smooth. You can add additional milk (1 Tablespoon at a time) if the frosting is too thick or additional powdered sugar if too soft.
This is our favorite chocolate frosting! Recipe can easily be doubled or halved.
This recipe makes approximately 6-6.5 cups frosting.
Notes
Our favorite brands of confectioners sugar are Dominos and US Sugar (Costco). I'm sure that there are other good ones as well- but we never have issues with grainy buttercream when using these brands.
Hi tootsieroll :0) -- Just add some more milk if it seems too thick (just a little at a time) until you get a more workable consistency. Also, just in case this applies to you...when you measure out your powdered sugar, just spoon it into the measuring cup (rather than scooping it) -- this will give you a more accurate measurement.
As for spelling out happy birthday onto 12 cupcakes, any chance that you can bump it to 13 or 14? That way you could write a letter on each cupcake. -- If working with 12, you could still probably make this work- you would just need to adjust the spacing of the letters. Another idea is to group them tightly together and frost them all as one surface as a "cupcake cake" and write happy birthday on top. :0)
I used this buttercream recipe today. It was absolutely delicious!!!!
Thank you so much!
So glad that you like it!! ;0)
Used this on my gluten-free vanilla cake for a customer! They loved it and I thought it tasted amazing! had to use a lot more milk that it asked for though
hi could you please help me by telling me what can i do to unstiff my chocolate buttercream?It doesn't come out fluffy as it should or as i see it on video .Do i have to add more milk ?and how many gr. exactely are 6 cups sugar please?
Hi Anna-Maria---Yes, just add a little bit more milk at a time until you get the desired consistency.
I used the link below to tell me that 6 cups powdered sugar= 750 grams
-- You can also find this conversion website in our "Member Resources" section under "Helpful Links"
http://www.traditionaloven.com/culinary-arts/sugars/confectioners-sugar/convert-us-measuring-cup-to-gram-g-confectioner-sugar.html
thank's Melissa for you answer could you also please clarify me why buttercream some times come out fine and other it's a complet failure? I spended 3 hours yesterday making a bunch of chocolate buttercream and it when stiff I had to threw it away ,I can not use it .I added milk but no great difference .
Could it be because the weather is a bit cold ? could it be because i beat it in the mixer for a long time? does it get stiffer if you beat it more than 5 minutes . What are the causes that can make a buttercream turn wrong ?
Thanks anyway for your help .
Sorry to insist Melissa for an answer but i have to prepare 200 cupcakes for a christening and it seems i can not get control of my buttercream
thank's
Hi Anna- Maria, sorry for the delay but we were asleep when your question came in. We are on the east coast of the US.
The weather being a bit cold should not have made your buttercream too stiff to use, also I always beat mine 6 to 8 minutes so that is not the problem.
Possibly some brands of cocoa powder might need more milk added. I can't think of a reason why adding more milk would not not solve the problelm......just keep adding milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you get the consistency you need. If your buttercream has the look of popped bubbles, it needs more milk and that will disappear. If your butter is softened and the milk is added as needed, I can't think of what would make it too stiff to use. Let us know.......because you should not be having this problem.
No problem I can understand the reason of your delay I new the problem with the difference of hours . I just started all over again this morning by making my buttercream with 180gr of butter and 50 gr of Crisco instead of doing the hole bunch with fresh butter . I also used a bit less sugar and it came out much smoother. I hope I will have no problem piping it on my cupcakes.
Any way thank's so much for your concern both of you . I will send you the photos when they will be ready
Made this tonight and it is absolutely delicious! It was the perfect ratio of chocolate and sweetness.
Hi melissa
I'm jz a newby in cake decorating even in baking ..can I used salted butter instead of unsalted? Would the result be the same? Here in our area , unsalted butter is expensive than salted one..tnx in advance!more power!