Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
This chocolate buttercream frosting is incredibly rich and creamy, with an intense chocolate flavor from the cocoa powder. This easy recipe only takes about 10 minutes to whip up, and you can even make the frosting ahead of time!
Ultra creamy, intensely chocolatey, and silky smooth, I can confidently say that this homemade chocolate buttercream is the best ever. It’s been my tried and true frosting for chocolate cupcakes and chocolate layer cake for years, and I love that it only takes just a few minutes to prepare.
I also prefer making my own chocolate frosting because the store-bought kind is usually WAY too sweet and doesn’t have much flavor. This frosting is rich and chocolatey, but not overly sweet or heavy, so it’s perfect for generously spreading over cakes or cupcakes.
This is such a simple recipe that you can easily scale up or down depending on what kind of dessert you’ll be frosting. It freezes really well too, which is great if you need to make it ahead of time or wind up with too much!
Recipe Video
The Cocoa Powder
You can use either Dutch process or natural cocoa powder to make this buttercream. Natural cocoa powder will result in a lighter colored frosting, while Dutch process cocoa powder will make the frosting darker and give it a more chocolatey flavor.
I’ve made this frosting recipe with both types of cocoa powder and it’s great either way, so feel free to use whatever you have on hand!
If you want to learn a little more about the difference between the two, I have a full blog post that explains more about natural and Dutch process cocoa powder.
Tips For Making This Frosting
- Use room temperature butter. I usually set my butter on the counter about an hour before I start making the frosting. You want it to be soft enough that you can easily make an indent in the butter with your finger, without it sliding around.
- Mix on low speed. This prevents the powdered sugar and cocoa powder from going everywhere and too many air bubbles from getting into the frosting.
- Don’t mix all of the powdered sugar in at once. You want it to be thoroughly mixed with the butter! Adding the powdered sugar in stages ensures that this happens.
- Sift the cocoa powder first. Cocoa powder can tend to form lots of little clumps as it sits. Sifting it through a fine mesh sieve before mixing it into the buttercream will give you a much smoother frosting!
How Much Does This Recipe Make?
This recipe makes about 3 cups of buttercream, which is enough to generously frost about 14 to 16 cupcakes, one 9×13-inch cake, or to lightly frost a two layer cake.
If you’re making a layer cake, I recommend increasing the recipe by half so you have a thicker layer of frosting and enough to decorate the cake.
Different Ways To Use This Frosting
This chocolate buttercream frosting can be spread, piped, and swirled onto just about any baked good. Some of my favorite ways to use it are:
- On cupcakes. Particularly chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, and coconut cupcakes.
- On cakes. This makes the perfect amount of frosting for a small chocolate cake, or you can scale it up to frost a yellow cake or marble cake.
- On cookies. Try it on my cut-out sugar cookies or this chocolate chip cookie cake.
- On brownies and bars. Pipe it onto brownie bites, chocolate chip cookie bars, or blondies.
Beautiful creamy, chocolate perfection!
If you try this recipe, don’t forget to leave a comment below letting me know what you thought of this frosting and how you used it. I love hearing your feedback!
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened (226 grams; 2 sticks)
- 3 cups powdered sugar (360 grams)
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder sifted (45 grams)
- 3 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk (45 to 60 ml)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth.1 cup unsalted butter
- Add half of the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until fully combined, then mix in the remaining half of the powdered sugar. Add the sifted cocoa powder and mix until fully combined.3 cups powdered sugar,½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- Add the heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, and salt and mix on low speed until fully combined, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.3 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk,1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract,⅛ teaspoon salt
- Use immediately to frost a cake, cupcakes, etc. or cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use.
I haven’t made it yet, but looked over the frosting recipe. I make cakes – cupcakes for different occasions. Buffets, funerals, church functions etc. How does it do sitting out for several hours at a time? Looking forward to trying it. It looks easy and delicious. Thank you
It holds up just fine at room temperature! I would just avoid leaving it anywhere too warm (or outside) because the butter will melt if it gets too hot.
Every recipe of yours that I’ve tried to look at has an ad that’s over one of the first ingredients or over part of the instructions and they don’t have any exes in the corner so that you can close them or move them. I think I’ll have to look at other recipes since I don’t know what the first ingredients of your chocolate buttercream is.
Sorry you’re having issues viewing the ingredients, Shantelle. I’ve checked on several different devices and I’m not having that issue. If you can let me know what device you are using, I can check into it to see if I can get it fixed. In the meantime, you should be able to click the logo in the bottom right hand corner of the ad and report it to remove it. You can also click print recipe and it will pull up a printable version of the recipe without any ads.
loved this recipe! Your buttercream recipes are perfect. Any advice for white chocolate buttercream?
You could probably use my regular buttercream recipe here and add about 4 to 6 ounces of melted white chocolate to it. I would make sure to let the melted chocolate cool for 15 minutes or until it’s no longer hot. White chocolate is pretty sweet too, so you may want to just start with 2 cups of powdered sugar and add more as needed.
Hello! I love this recipe it is so delicious! I have used it before for cupcakes but I am going to be using it on a cake soon. How many batches do you recommend I make of this frosting? It is a 8 inch cake with three cake layers.
For a lighter layer of frosting, you can increase the recipe by half. If you want more frosting or to decorate the cake, I’d suggest doubling the recipe.
Perfect! Thank you for your help!
Hi Danielle,
The taste of the frosting was delicious but when I dust some powdered sugar on icing of cupcakes they disappear. How can I fix that? Chocolate icing too wet or what? Please help, thank you for sharing the recipe.
It’s likely just dissolving because of the moisture in the frosting. You could try refrigerating the frosting after you’ve piped it onto the cupcakes, then dusting it with powdered sugar.