Chocolate Buttercream Recipe

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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!

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting in mixing bowl.

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!

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.

The BEST Classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe by MyCakeSchool.com! So chocolatey, delicious, simple, and pipes perfectly! My Cake School Online cake tutorials, videos, recipes, and more!

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

Amazing Classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe by MyCakeSchool.com. This easy recipe tastes fantastic, works as a great filling and frosting for cakes and cupcakes, and pipes beautifully! MyCakeSchool.com online cake tutorials, videos, recipes, and more!

The most delicious and simple Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe! This chocolate frosting pipes great also.

Prep Time 15 minutes
Additional Time 10 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

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

  1. 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.
  2. Add most of the milk. Begin mixing at low speed so you won't have a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen.
  3. 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.

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153 Comments

  1. I have made this once before and it was awesome. I need to make it again and the end result needs to be black icing. Would this work okay with Hershey's dark chocolate cocoa do you think.? I really want to keep the amount of black food coloring to a minimum?

  2. Does this need to be refrigerated after making or can it be kept in an airtight container in a cool place?

  3. Hi Kimberly, you can keep your frosted buttercream cake out for 2 days (depending on heat and humidity). Your buttercream will be good in the refrigerator 2 weeks if the expiration dates of your milk and butter are good....or you can freeze for 2 to 3 months

  4. Hi Bebe

    Will this frosting fare well in the summer? I have a chocolate wedding cake to do and do not want in melting on me! ~Thanks so much!

  5. Hello.. I need to make black icing tomorrow for a mickey mouse cake, quite nervous may I add..lol

    Anyway, how many drops on black fodd coloring would I need to add to this recipe, to get a nice dark mickey mouse black color... also, some with your vanilla icing recipe, what can I do to get it a nice mickey red... please help.. thanks!!! elena

  6. also one more question about my mickey cake i'm making.. i'm making a mickey shape face.. 2 8in round cake and one 14 in cake, any tips on how to attach the ears to the face?? thanks!

  7. Hi Elena, I can't say definitely. It always takes a lot of food coloring to achieve black and the other deep colors such as red. The color will intensify as time goes by. At first your red will not look dark enough, but after several hours your color will deepen.