Peanut Butter Buttercream Recipe
This Peanut Butter Buttercream is one of my all-time FAVORITE frostings. If you need a great peanut butter frosting that is easy to make, pipes perfectly, and tastes amazing, this is the one.
It makes the most wonderful peanut butter filling and frosting for chocolate cakes and cupcakes. You will love the light and fluffy consistency and fantastic flavor.
Table of Contents
Peanut Butter and Chocolate
I absolutely love peanut butter buttercream swirled high onto cupcakes, sandwiched in between layers of rich chocolate cake, or injected into the centers of chocolate cupcakes to make them even more irresistible.
Some of our favorite chocolate cakes to pair with this frosting are our Chocolate Cake from Scratch, Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, and homemade chocolate cupcakes. If you love cake mix recipes, give our Chocolate Cake from Cake Mix a try.
You can frost entire cakes with this recipe also, as we did in our Peanut Butter Cake Recipe!
How to fill Cupcakes with Frosting
When we make cupcakes, we often fill the centers with a filling--sometimes it's the same as the swirled frosting on top, and other times we go with a different flavor.
To inject our peanut butter frosting into chocolate cupcakes as a filling, simply load a disposable piping bag with peanut butter frosting, snip away the tip, and insert right into the center of the unfrosted cupcake (about halfway down).
Give the piping bag a squeeze for 2-3 seconds, and you're done! If you don't have a practice cupcake to practice on, you can do a quick practice run on a plate just to get an idea of how much buttercream comes out of the bag in 2-3 seconds, and adjust to your liking! ;0)
Which Peanut Butter is Best for Frosting?
*One important thing to remember when choosing your Peanut Butter for this recipe is that "natural" peanut butter doesn't work as well.
At least, the ones that we've experimented with over the years haven't worked as well. The consistency of natural peanut butter is much less creamy, and that comes through in the frosting.
Instead, try Creamy peanut butter. We have good results with JIF, Peter Pan, etc.
How to Make Peanut Butter Frosting
You can find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and mix on medium until butter is soft and smooth. Next, add the peanut butter and mix.
- Next, add the powdered sugar a little at a time, alternating with the milk. Add the vanilla, and mix for 4-5 minutes until nice and smooth!
- That's it! It doesn't get much simpler, but trust me, this recipe is the BEST!
More Peanut Butter Recipes
Here are a few more cake and frosting recipes with Peanut Butter for you to try!
Thanks so much for stopping by today. We hope that you enjoy the recipe. If you give it a try, we would love to know what you think! Make sure to check out our full collection of cake recipes and learn how to decorate cakes as well!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Peanut Butter Buttercream
This amazing peanut butter buttercream frosting tastes amazing and is SO easy to make! We love it with chocolate cakes and cupcakesQ!
Ingredients
- 1 cup ( 255 grams) Creamy Peanut Butter Do Not Use Natural or Reduced Fat. We have used Jif and Peter Pan Creamy brands.
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 4 c. (460g) powdered sugar
- ¼ cup (60g) milk plus 2 Tablespoon - use more if needed to reach the consistency you like
- 2 teaspoons ( 8 grams ) vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- In the bowl of your mixer add the butter and mix on medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth. Add the peanut butter and mix until blended.
- Gradually add the powdered sugar alternately with the milk. Add vanilla. Mix on medium speed 4 to 5 minutes until smooth.
- ***Peanut butter brands labeled "Natural" that I have tried do not work as well with this recipe because the consistency isn't as smooth & creamy. I've used Jif & Peter Pan (Creamy) with good results!
Hi Melissa, I made this last night and it was delicious, but very thick and dense. I'd love to make it fluffier for my chocolate cake,t hat I will wrap with chocolate. Can I use whipping cream of heavy cream to make it a fluffier filling? If so, can you suggest how I would do this? Thanks.
I figured it out and made the PB buttercream substituting whipping cream for the 3 Tbsp of milk- it is heavenly and will be perfect for my cake. I was afraid that the thickness do the other recipe would make my chocolate wrapped cake too rich like a PB cup. Also, I do think that it may have been thicker the 1st time because I used Jif Natural PB. So I switched to regular Jif PB instead. Since I just made 2 changes at the same time not sure, but I do think it had something to do with it. Yummy.
Hi "paintmycake"! I'm so sorry that I did not get back to your question in time-- it was on my list and somehow I missed it. So glad that you were happy with the consistency with the whipping cream added (and the different brand of pb) -- I bet that it was the whipping cream that had the most to do with the consistency change. You are making me crave pb buttercream now! haha ;0) --Thanks for the update!
I have a customer who wants peanut butter buttercream vertical ruffles and rosettes. Do you think this recipe will hold up as ruffles/roses? I am afraid of ruffles keeling over and rosettes falling or sliding...help!
Hi Paula-- I actually just made some peanut butter buttercream & experimented with piping the vertical ruffles on the side of a glass. Seems to hold it's shape just fine! :0) Good luck, let us know how it goes!
I love this recipe and have received rave reviews on it. I think next I will make brownies, then layer this peanut butter buttercream over the brownies, then layer with ganache for the final layer...maybe some crushed peanut butter cups on top of the peanut butter buttercream..or on top of the ganache. Oh man, I need a glass of milk just thinking about it!
I need a glass of milk too!! Sounds SO good! Love anything pb & chocolate.
Super idea !! Is the confectionary sugar just regular white sugar ?
Thank you xxx
I have left over fluffy vanilla buttercream and am wondering if I could mix peanut butter into that versus making a whole new batch of pb buttercream?
Hi Barbara, Confectioners' sugar is also known as powdered sugar in the US. In some countries it is called icing sugar. Regular white sugar is granulated sugar.
Hi Kim, We have not tried that but it might work. I would experiment by taking out about 1 cup of the Fluffy and mixing in peanut butter to see if when the taste is what you want, the consistency will be good for spreading and piping...
Thanks f the recipe, can y send me eggless red velvet cake...., please.... I need this as soon as possible. ?.
Hi All.. I have a question about this pb frosting recipe. Will it be stable enough and crust enough to use under fondant? I am making a carved chocolate cake and customer is requesting peanut butter (either ganache, if there is such a thing, or pb frosting) and the cake needs to be covered in white fondant. Will this recipe work for this? Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)