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.
Thanks for getting back to me Bebe. I went with my gut and used the same amount I had been using in the classic buttercream recipe (690grams). I still had to add a few more tablespoons of milk for it to be the consistency I wanted and after that it was perfect and tasted great! I think it had just the right amount of sweetness! And everyone else loved it to. Thank you so much!!
Here's the cake I made with it?
It's beautiful, Natasha!!!
Hi Natasha, Your cake looks absolutely perfect!
Hi Liz, We used vanilla extract in the recipe. I believe that vanilla extract has a stronger flavor than vanilla essence. Hope this helps.
I'm actually answering a question that was posted five years ago. In regard to the person who had gritty buttercream, it's the powdered sugar that can cause grit and there's really nothing you can do about it once it's mixed in. It happens most often with powdered sugar that is not pure cane sugar...though I've had it occur with pure cane too. Now, before I make frosting, I'll take a taste to make sure it melts and doesn't leave a gritty residue on my tongue. It irks me I have to do it at all! ?
Can this be used for piping. Will hold its shape. For how long
Hi Jan- Thanks for your comments on gritty buttercream! We have also found that the brand of the confectioner's sugar (even with pure cane sugar) can make a difference. For instance, we used to use Dixie Crystals all the time but something changed- even though it still says pure cane sugar, we suspect perhaps the ratio of cane sugar to cornstarch changed because now it results in gritty buttercream. We get the best results now from Domino's and also US Confectioner's sugar from Costco.
@Maria- Yes this recipe is perfect for piping but you can easily adjust the frosting to your liking by adding a small amount more liquid for a thinner consistency, or a bit more powdered sugar for a thicker consistency.
Hi dear i was asking regarding normal butter cream frosting. Will it hold its shape while frosting or piping.
Hi Maria, yes it will!
Just made this buttercream and it's perfect. Not too sweet but delicious. The only thing I did differently was double the milk. Will be using this buttercream a lot!
Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Jen, So glad you like the recipe! Thank you for posting!
This recipe is totally yummy! Bf who hates buttercream icing loved this one. Going to use this recipe for a friend's 30th birthday cake which will be a 2 tiered chocolate and banana cakes. Amazing!