This classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe is the only chocolate buttercream recipe that you will ever need. It tastes completely amazing, pipes beautifully, and has been our go-to chocolate buttercream for years!
You are going to LOVE how simple this chocolate frosting is to put together. Throw that canned chocolate frosting in the trash, it won’t taste good to you anymore!
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 our scratch Classic Chocolate Cake, Marble Cake, Yellow Cake, and swirled or injected into cupcakes! I could go on and on.
Like most American buttercreams, this chocolate frosting develops a slight crust. You can reduce the amount of sugar to 5 cups (675 g confectioner’s sugar) for a softer frosting.
This Chocolate Frosting recipe should give you a nice medium consistency, making it perfect for piping, but you can easily alter it to your liking! 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.
Classic Chocolate Buttercream
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softened (do not soften butter in the microwave)
- 6 c. confectioners sugar (icing sugar) (690) grams) or more if needed. ** For cupcakes, I like to use 5 c. (675g) for a softer frosting
- 1 c. cocoa, sifted (86 grams) measure then sift
- 1/3 c. milk (75 grams) more if needed to reach the spreading consistency you like
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (8 grams)
Directions
- Add butter and beat for approximately 1 min. on medium speed. Add vanilla and blend into the butter. Add powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Add most of the milk. Begin beating at low speed so you won't have a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen. Beat at medium speed 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and beat an additional two to three minutes, adding remaining milk as needed.
- This is my favorite chocolate frosting! Recipe can easily be doubled or halved.
- This recipe makes approximately 4 cups of frosting.
- **Pictured is our chocolate buttercream frosting which I combed around the sides and ruffled the top with a Wilton 104 tip. The cake is our "Classic Chocolate Cake", a scratch recipe in our Recipes section.
We have a couple of other delicious chocolate frostings in our recipes section! Our Fluffy Chocolate Buttercream recipe is similar to this one, 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!
That’s all for now! Don’t you just want to dive into a bowl of chocolate buttercream? Ahhhhh….so good. We think that you’ll love this Classic Chocolate Frosting!
Make sure to check out our full collection of favorite tried and true cake and frosting recipes in our Recipes Section! Thanks for stopping by!
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?
Hi Sal, This recipe make approximately 4 cups frosting, I think you would need a bit more for a 3 layer, 9 inch cake. Depending on how much decorative piping you will be doing, you should make 1 1/2 times the recipe or double the recipe.
Thank you for your reply. This helps a lot! 😊
Hi, my daughter and I are trying this tonight. For the cream, is it unsweetened cocoa like the cake? Or sweetened? Never made chocolate frosting before. Thanks in advance. Can’t wait to try all these yummies!
Hi Sherry, The cocoa in the frosting recipe is unsweetened. I use Ghirardelli but you can use whatever brand is your favorite. Since this is your first time making chocolate buttercream, if you find it too stiff, add additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time or if too soft a add a bit more powdered sugar. The recipe makes 4 cups, and is enough to frost an 8 inch cake, but if you like a thick filling and frosting you will want to make 1 1/2 times or double the recipe to have enough for decorative piping.
Thank you for replying, extra advice, and your site. My daughter has been wanting to learn making a cake from scratch😊
I have never successfully made frosting— until coming across your instructions!
If I am making this tonight to frost a cake tomorrow, should I store in the fridge or at room temp?
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe.
Hi Christina, Yes, you can store the frosting at room temperature overnight and frost the cake tomorrow. We are so happy you like the recipe.
The icing looks great, but I was wondering if there was any way to change the coloring. As silly as it sounds I’m looking to make an icing that tastes good but can also be turned into camo colors. It’s for a friend’s son’s birthday and the theme is camo colors and such. If you could help I would thankful, if not I understand and still thank you for the amazing icing recipe.
Hi Ranger, I’m sorry but you won’t be able to adjust the chocolate buttercream to create camo colors. You will need to begin with a vanilla buttercream. Here is a link to a 1 minute video Melissa made showing how to smooth camo colored cupcakes, you might find it helpful.
link to mycakeschool.com
Hope all goes well.
I just made this chocolate buttercream, and it’s delicious!
I’m so glad, Cindy! Your cake looks perfect!
Hello, so I have made this icing twice now, once for the german chocolate cake & once for the yellow cake, although the icing tasted good and got many compliments, the icing is coming out extremely stiff, am I using too much powdered sugar? Also, I always measure, then sift before adding, this is one of the only buttercream icing I’ve had this issue with. Just to note, although I’ve had this issue, both cakes were a huge hit, so thank you!
Hi Yvonne, I am happy you like the recipe. You can add additional milk until the frosting is the consistency you like. Add the extra milk just a small amount at a time. If it should happen to become too soft, add more powdered sugar.
I’m trying to make this frosting a little more stiff around the edges- does that make sense? What do I do for that? Or What may I be doing wrong?
Hi Christy- If you want a thicker consistency of frosting, you can add a little more powdered sugar until you have the consistency that you like. If you’ve frosted the cake but are wanting sharper edges, you can chill the cake in the freezer for about 15 minutes or just until the frosting firms up, and then go over the cake with a hot spatula to smooth out your frosting or create sharper edges around the top, etc. Not sure if this is what you’re asking but I hope it helps!