Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
Strawberry season is in full swing and today I'm sharing a fantastic Strawberry Buttercream Frosting recipe! It is easy to make, pipes beautifully, and is bursting with fresh strawberry flavor!
This versatile strawberry frosting recipe can be used as a filling or frosting, and tastes AMAZING with all sorts of cake and cupcake flavors.
It not only makes a wonderful strawberry frosting, but is delicious as a strawberry filling when sandwiched between cake layers. The real strawberries in the recipe give it great flavor.
**If you will be doing a lot of piping you will need to double the recipe
Table of Contents
How to Make Strawberry Buttercream
This strawberry buttercream recipe is so delicious, you'll want to make it again and again for all of your favorite strawberry cake recipes!
The best part (aside from being such a good, pipeable frosting) is that it is such an easy recipe to whip up.
This is a basic American Buttercream recipe, which means it is a combination of these simple ingredients: softened butter, confectioners sugar, a pinch of salt, flavoring, and in this case, strawberries which lends a delicious natural strawberry flavor.
**You can find the full, printable recipe for Strawberry Buttercream below, but here is a quick rundown of the steps:
- Soften the butter at room temperature, and puree the strawberries in the food processor. Using a paddle attachment, cream the softened unsalted butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth. (If you don't have a stand mixer, a handheld mixer works well also!) Gradually add the powdered sugar and strawberry puree beating at medium speed until blended.
- Continue mixing at medium speed another 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl. **If you'd like the frosting to be a bit more pink, just add a few drops of pink food coloring or coloring gel.
- Next, turn the mixer to low speed (#2 on a KitchenAid) and continue mixing another 1 to 2 minutes to eliminate air pockets. The strawberry frosting will become very smooth.
- The consistency is simple to change- If the buttercream is too thin add more powdered sugar, if too thick add more puree or a bit of milk.
- Any extra strawberry puree can be spread between the cake layers.
- This buttercream should be refrigerated in an airtight container until it's time to frost the cake! Due to the perishable nature of strawberries, I like to refrigerate cakes that have been frosted with this buttercream until within a couple of hours of the event.
Decorating the Cake
In the photo above, I filled a disposable piping bag with strawberry buttercream, and piped on top of our freshly crumb coated cake using a star tip 21.
I covered the top of the cake with piped spirals of buttercream. Then, I continued my buttercream piping around the sides with simple piped shells in a braided buttercream pattern.
This strawberry buttercream is perfect for all sorts of piping techniques, textured buttercream techniques, or a smooth finish.
Pureed Strawberries vs. Strawberry Extract
**If you will be doing a lot of piping you will need to double the recipe
No More Grainy buttercream
Many people are surprised to learn that the type of powdered sugar used in an American Buttercream recipe like this one, can greatly the smoothness of your buttercream. Some brands/types of confectioners sugar just don't work well with frosting.
Over the years, we've run into a couple of brands of powdered sugar that gave us a beautiful looking buttercream which turned out to have a gritty, grainy consistency- ugh!
If a package doesn’t say pure cane sugar, it contains beet sugar which is more likely to give you a grainy outcome.
However, we’ve noticed that even some brands that say “Pure Cane Sugar” will give a grainy consistency. One example is Dixie Crystals (although it used to work great for us several years ago.) Something has changed.
I’ve read that sometimes brands will use an anti-caking agent that causes grittiness, but it’s hard to say what the true reason is. Your best bet is to do a little experimenting to find the brand that gives you the best results.
We’ve had great results with Domino’s confectioner’s sugar.
What Cakes Pair Well with Strawberry Buttercream?
This easy Strawberry Buttercream Frosting tastes great with so many cake flavors! Here are just a few of our favorites!
Strawberry Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
We have more Strawberry Fillings to Share!
Enjoy the Recipe!
Thanks so much for stopping by! If you give this Strawberry Buttercream recipe a try, we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below.
Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
We love this delicious Strawberry Buttercream recipe!
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (1 cup) (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 6 cups (690g) powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt (optional) this will cut the sweetness (popcorn salt will dissolve more quickly)
- ¼ cup plus 1 Tablespoon pureed strawberries, add more to reach your desired spreading consistency- This is approximately 3-5 strawberries depending on size.
- 1 teaspoon (4g) strawberry extract (optional) use if the buttercream needs more strawberry flavor
Instructions
Cream the softened butter until smooth.
Gradually add the powdered sugar and pureed strawberries beating at medium speed until blended.
Continue mixing on medium speed another 3 to 4 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally
Slow down the mixer to very slow (#2 on a KitchenAid) and mixing another 1 to 2 minutes. This will eliminate air pockets. The buttercream will become very smooth.
If the buttercream is too thin add more powdered sugar, if too thick add more puree or a bit of milk.
Any extra strawberry puree can be spread between the cake layers
Makes 4 to 4 ½ cups
Hi Claudia, I'm glad you asked the question, the butter flavoring slipped my mind. When eliminating all the butter you will need to add that flavor. I think based on the quantity of the strawberry recipe I would add 1/4 teaspoon butter flavoring . I would leave out the almond and use only the strawberry extract. I would use 1 teaspoon strawberry extract unless after tasting the buttercream you think it needs a bit more. The high ratio shortening has no flavor so you might need to adjust the amounts of butter flavor or strawberry extract to suit your taste. If you were open to using some butter, you could change the recipe to 1/2 cup (1 stick ) butter and 1/2 cup high ratio shortening, eliminate the butter flavoring and keeping the recipe otherwise the same except you might need to add a bit more liquid (strawberry puree or milk) as I mentioned earlier. Let me know if you have other questions.
I opened my small bottle of Strawberry Extract but before using I tasted of it.... so bitter and an after taste... I didn’t use it... it wasn’t good!! Not sure what brand you use but this one I ordered from a great company was not good.., I poured it down the drain!! So I bought fresh strawberries and made a strawberry syrup to use... haven’t used it yet... But it taste wonderful!!
This frosting is absolutely, deliciously, spectacular!! I think it tastes even better the day after you make it and the strawberries have time to sit. I didn’t use any flavorings or extracts with it and it is so fresh tasting and womderful...especially on your white cake recipe! Yummmm!!
Thanks so much for your feedback Molly! So happy that you enjoyed it. xo
I have 3/4 a of a cup of strawberry puree, left over from another recipe.
I would like to make this recipe, but I don’t know how much 10-12 large strawberries would be. How much purée would I need?
Also, can I freeze this?
A friend picked chocolate cake with strawberry frosting for a belated birthday cake. I might be having surgery, and want to get a lot done before then. Also, which dark chocolate cake would you recommend with this frosting?
Thank you so much, Judy.
Hi Judy, You have enough strawberry puree with 3/4 of cup. The recipe needs 1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon, more if needed to reach the spreading consistency your like. You could always add a bit of milk if needed. We most often use the Classic Chocolate Cake recipe. I think you would also like the Chocolate Sour Cream or Devils Food recipe. These two are a bit darker. All would pair well with strawberry frosting. The cake layers can be made in advance and frozen for up to 2 months, just wrap layers individually in plastic wrap and then in aluminum foil. Hope all goes well.
Hi Bebe,
Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly. What’s confusing me is that the recipe says it needs 10-12 strawberries that are puréed.
And then it says 1/4 cup plus 1 TBSP.
Is this an error in the recipe???
Thank you. MWAH!
Hi Judy, I think I understand your question now. The 10-12 strawberries are pureed to give you the 1/4 cup plus 1 TBSP. The 10 to 12 strawberries will give you more than than 1/4 cup. If your strawberries are very small you can add a few more to the blender. Does this help?
Hi Bebe,
Yes, thank you. I understand now. I didn't know why the strawberries were listed in two places.
I will make the frosting and freeze it.
Hi, Will this frost a half sheet single layer cake or would I need to increase? Thank you.
If we use hi-ratio shortening vs butter what would be the amount? I saw someone ask, but I didn't see a conversion. What would be the amount swapped? Would it be the same, 1/2 cup for 1/2 a cup? Also, I have nut allergies and cannot use almond extract. Would it be ok to just use the butter flavoring and strawberry instead? sorry so many questions!
Thanks!
Hi bluebugs, There are different thoughts on amounts but you can use the same amount of hi-ratio as butter or a combination of 1/2 butter and 1/2 hi-ratio. With a combination of the two you could eliminate the butter flavoring. Omitting the almond extract will be fine. Recipes using hi-ratio shortening can hold more liquid so you will need to increase the liquid use to reach the spreading consistency you like. You can increase the strawberry puree or leave it the same and add milk as needed for for more liquid.