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.
This is the BEST chocolate icing I have ever used and tasted! Thank you!
Hi. Would it be necessary to double the amount for the filling and crumb coat for a checkerboard cake please?
Hi Bernice, This recipe makes 4 cups frosting, it is enough to frost a 2 layer 8 inch round cake. You could make 1 1/2 times the recipe or if you will be doing a lot of decorative pipping you can double the recipe.
Hi! I will be needing a chocolate buttercream to fill your Classic Chocolate cake recipe. It will be 99 degrees out on Sunday. The party is indoors but will probably be 74-76 inside with the air on. Will this all butter recipe be ok out for a few hours? Once together, I wont' have anyway to refrigerate it. I will be adding ganache to the outside no icing and covering in fondant. Does that make the filling more stable or melt faster? Can I substitute half the butter with shortening and will that make it more stable?
Hi Gloria, You should not have any problem using this recipe with the indoor temperature at 74 -76. It would be fine using all butter, though you could substitute with half shortening, if you like. If you are traveling with the cake to the party site, it is a good idea to chill the cake. It just firms everything up for the trip.
do i have to make extra buttercream if i want to frost 2layer 9inch cake?.. tq. your buttercream look stunning. plan to use this recipe for my customer order next week
Hi Iiyana, For a 2 layer 9 inch cake that will be filled with buttercream and have decorative piping, I suggest doubling the recipe. If you are not doing a lot of decorative piping, you could increase the recipe by 1/2.
This looks delicious! Would this frosting work for the Viva Paper Towel Smoothing method?
Hi Heidi, Yes, this is a crusting buttercream recipe and would work for the Viva Paper Towel Smoothing method.
I have a cottage food business. I was wondering what difference adding water to your frostings rather than milk. I can not use milk in any of my frostings. Thank you.
Hi Terri, It will be fine to use water, I don't think you will notice much of a taste difference. When using water the buttercream will crust more quickly. So for some cake designs you may need to work more quickly. The fat in milk slows down the crusting, whole milk crust more slowly and heavy cream even more slowly.
Hello. This chocolate buttercream looks delicious! Can I use this recipe to frost a 9 inch 3 layer cake?