Strawberry season is in full swing and today I'm sharing a fantastic Strawberry Buttercream Recipe that 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
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. Spirals of buttercream covered the top of the cake, and 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.
We have quite a few favorite buttercream recipes in our Recipes section, make sure to scroll through all of them!
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
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
We have more Strawberry Fillings to Share!
My Cake School Online Cake Tutorials and Delicious Cake & Frosting Recipes!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you'll give this strawberry buttercream a try-- whether you're frosting a fresh strawberry cake for a birthday party, or using it as a strawberry filling for chocolate cupcakes, or another of the hundreds of possible flavor options, we hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as we have! We'd love for you to share your comments or photos below!
For more great recipes, make sure to scroll through our entire Recipes Section! We have so many cakes, fillings, and frostings to share!
If you're interested in cake decorating- we'd love for you to visit our Free Cake Tutorials section, which also includes our Free Cake Videos section for creative cake decorating ideas.
Hi Denise, You can puree the strawberries in syrup, but you will only need 1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon, possibly more to reach the spreading consistency you like.
hi .my place here its quiet hot and humid.how can i stabilize the buttercream without adding extra sweetness to the recipe.Or is there any alternate buttercream
Hi Vimala, You can replace half or all of the butter with vegetable shortening. You will also refrigerate the completed cake in an airtight cover, otherwise it will dry out in the refrigerator. Take it out 1 1/2 to 2 hours before serving so the chill will be off the cake.
thnaks for the reply but here we dont get good veg shortening .the taste of the buttercream after adding the shortening available here is so greasy.is any of the SMBC or IMBC or ermine buttercream stable enough to sustain the humid temperature?
Hi, when I mixed sugar and strawberry puree with the butter it got separated when mixed. Please tell me the reason and how to fix it.
I would like to have a strawberry cream cheese icing? Can I combine your two recipes somehow?
Hi Tabitha, Typically cream cheese recipes don't have liquid because it makes the frosting too soft. I think you could adjust our Cream Cheese Buttercream recipe by decreasing the cream cheese, using 1 1/2 packages instead of 2 packages. Puree or crush 2 large strawberries or 4 small. Also, add 1 teaspoon strawberry extract for more strawberry flavor. Add a touch (using a toothpick) of food coloring if you want more of a pink color. If you use the Pipeable Cream Cheese recipe you could add the strawberries and add an additional cup of powdered sugar if needed. Don't over beat the frosting or it will become too soft. If it does, just refrigerate and short while, maybe 10 minutes and it will firm up.
***I just wanted to add that we actually do have a Strawberry Whipped Cream Cheese Filling- We've used our whipped cream cheese fillings/frostings from time to time- the flavor is very good but the consistency is more of whipped cream rather than our usual frostings. So, if you are looking for a really smooth finish to the frosting, it probably isn't your best bet. However, if you would be happy with more of a swirled or textured look, it would be fine for that!
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes/strawberry-whipped-cream-cheese-filling/
I was wondering if I can add food gel or coloring want the strawberry flavor but not the color
Hi Simphiwe, You can add food gel coloring to the buttercream, it is optional. We did not add any coloring to ours.