We all love to finish our cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and pastries with delicious frostings to take them to the next level. Whether you want something light and fluffy, or rich and decadent – the right frosting can make all the difference on your favorite dessert.
With so many different types of frostings it can be tricky to know which one is the best for your recipe, this guide will break down the main types of frostings, with what sets them apart, how to use them, and of course with links to recipes to make them!
Types of Buttercreams
American Buttercream is a super common, and easy frosting to make; using butter, powdered sugar and a little cream. It’s sweet, sturdy, and a great option for piping and decorating. It’s great for beginning bakers, or anyone in need of a quick frosting. Good for sheetcakes, cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. It can also be flavored with lots of different extracts or oils to give your frosting different tastes like lemon, peppermint, etc.
- Quick Description: A sweet, sturdy frosting made with butter and powdered sugar.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Smooth and creamy, can easily be colored
- Texture: Thick and Spreadable, can easily be piped.
- Best Used For: Great for cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. Great for piping and decorating.
- Flavor Options:
A Swiss Buttercream is made by cooking egg whites and sugar together over a hot water bath, and then whipping, while slowly adding the butter. It’s super smooth and silky, and is a great first cooked frosting to make if you’ve only made American Buttercream before. It’s got a beautiful white color, and is a little less sweet. Great for decorating cakes, though its a little less stable when piped.
- Quick Description: A smooth, and silky frosting made by heating egg whites and sugar, then adding in the butter.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Moderately Sweet
- Appearance: Glossy and smooth
- Texture: Light and Airy
- Best Used For: Great for layer cakes, and cupcakes. Has a suitable and refined finish.
Italian Buttercream is similar to a Swiss Buttercream, and pipes super beautifully. It’s made by cooking the sugar to a high temperature and then whipping that into a meringue mixture until its cool, then adding the butter. It’s super smooth, and silky, and a little trickier to make, but so easy to work with. It’s great for making piped decorations, like roses, or other shapes.
- Quick Description: A stable frosting made by combining hot cooked sugar and whipping it into a meringue mixture
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Sweetness: Low to Moderately sweet
- Appearance: Smooth and glossy
- Texture: Light and Creamy
- Best Used For: Delicious on elegant Cakes and pastries. Will hold up well in warmer conditions, and is considered the most stable buttercream.
A French Buttercream is the same as an Italian Buttercream, but made with egg yolks instead of egg whites giving it a custard like flavor and texture (think French Custard Ice Cream). It’s a very rich frosting, with a pale golden color. It’s great for piping on cupcakes, cakes, filling macarons, or fruit tarts.
- Quick Description: A custard like frosting made with egg yolks.
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Sweetness: Moderately Sweet
- Appearance: Creamy with a hint of yellow color
- Texture: Super smooth and velvety
- Best Used For: Great for using with decadent desserts, pairs well with with rich cakes, pastries, and macarons.
German Buttercream is made by incorporating pastry cream into the butter, it is a creamy, custard like frosting that’s rich, but less sweet than American buttercream. It’s great for filling pastries, or layering dense cakes.
- Quick Description: A creamy frosting made by mixing pastry cream with butter.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Low to moderately sweet.
- Appearance: Smooth and pale.
- Texture: Soft and creamy
- Best Used For: Great for filling and frosting cakes. Complements delicate flavors well.
Russian Buttercream is made with butter and sweetened condensed milk, that is whipped for several minutes making it super smooth, and rich. It’s a super easy one to make, with a strong butter flavor. It can pipe nicely, but doesn’t typically crust and should be used shortly after making it. It’s a great option for cupcakes.
- Quick Description: A rich frosting made with butter and condensed milk.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Creamy and Glossy
- Texture: Soft and Smooth.
- Best Used For: Great for a variety of cakes and cupcakes where a rich, buttery frosting is desired.
Other Classic Frostings
Ermine Frosting is a cooked flour frosting, that is very light and only slightly sweet. It has a similar texture to whipped cream and is a favorite old fashioned flavor, making it a great option for practically any cake (or those who love less sweet desserts). It’s a favorite flavor to pair with red velvet cake.
- Quick Description: A light frosting made by cooking flour and milk into a paste, and mixing with butter and sugar.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Low to moderately sweet.
- Appearance: Smooth and creamy
- Texture: Light and Fluffy
- Best Used For: Pairs well with traditional cake flavors, for a less sweet frosting option. A favorite with red velvet.
This frosting is made by cooking egg whites, sugar and corn syrup and whipping the fluffy meringue for about seven minutes, to make it an almost marshmallow cream like frosting. It’s so good on a variety of cakes, but especially good with coconut or chocolate.
- Quick Description: A fluffy meringue like frosting that tastes like marshmallow cream.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Glossy and very white
- Texture: Light and Airy
- Best Used For: Great for classic desserts, like angel food cake, especially good with coconut or chocolate and classic southern desserts.
A sweet and tangy frosting, cream cheese frosting is made with butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar that are whipped together. It’s a super easy frosting, that isn’t the best for intricate shapes, but is still pretty stable. It’s a must make for Carrot Cake, Hummingbird Cake, Pumpkin Cake, or Red Velvet Cake.
- Quick Description: A tangy frosting made with cream cheese and butter
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Moderately Sweet
- Appearance: Smooth and ultra creamy
- Texture: Soft and spreadable
- Best Used For: Great with lots of cakes, especially Red Velvet, Carrot Cake, or Pumpkin Cake.
A stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting takes your homemade whipped cream to the next level and can come together in just 15 minutes. It can be used in place of store bought whipped cream (like Cool Whip). It’s luscious, smooth, and will hold it’s shape! Perfect for using on ice cream cakes, cupcakes, strawberry shortcake, or anywhere you want the flavor of whipped cream that you can actually pipe.
- Quick Description: A light airy frosting, that is stabilized to hold its texture, but not as much as a buttercream.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Low to Moderately sweet
- Appearance: Soft and fluffy
- Texture: Light and airy
- Best Used For: Great for a variety of desserts, shortcakes, fruity desserts, or light cakes.
A chocolate twist on American Buttercream this chocolate frosting is made by adding unsweetened Cocoa Powder to the mix. It ‘s a super easy one to prepare and make. It’s great for chocolate cakes, and chocolate lovers, but also a classic combo when paired with a yellow cake, and would be so good for filling whoopie pies.
- Quick Description: A sweet buttercream made with cocoa powder.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Smooth and creamy, with a rich brown chocolate color.
- Texture: Thick and Creamy
- Best Used For: Pairs deliciously with chocolate cakes, cupcakes. Also delicious with yellow cakes, or berry flavors.
Royal Icing can be intimidating, but is actually pretty easy to make. It’s made with egg whites, or meringue powder and is a smooth, glossy, icing, that hardens making it a great option for decorating sugar cookies, or other cut out cookies. It’s a great way to decorate the cookies super intricately for holidays or other occasions.
- Quick Description: A glossy icing that firms up when dry, and can be tinted into a variety of colors for cookie decorating.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Sweet
- Appearance: Glossy and smooth and dries into a hard crust.
- Texture: A thin liquid when applied, and hardens into a solid.
- Best Used For: Cookie decorating, especially for intricate designs. Great for gingerbread houses too.
Other Frosting Favorites
Only two ingredients, chocolate ganache is so easy to make. It’s a rich chocolate glaze, that is silky, and shiny, and surprisingly versatile. It can be poured over your desserts, and is perfect for drip on top of a cake or cupcake. It’s also great for filling pastries, or layered cakes, or even making homemade truffles.
- Quick Description: A rich, glossy mixture of chocolate and heavy cream
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Varies based on the chocolate type that is used
- Appearance: Shiny and smooth
- Texture: Silky and smooth
- Best Used For: Great for glazing cakes or cupcakes, drips, fillings and truffles too.
Fondant is unlike traditional frostings that get spread on with a knife, or piped on, but instead of more like a pliable sugar dough that can be rolled out and draped over the top of cakes for a super smooth look. It can also be used to sculpt different shapes and patterns, which can be popular for birthday cakes or wedding cakes.
- Quick Description: A pliable dough that can be formed over cakes, or made into decorations
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Smooth and matte, can be tinted lots of colors
- Texture: Firm and chewy
- Best Used For: Good for wedding cakes, sculpted cakes, or other intricate decorations.
Only three ingredients, a glaze is a thin pourable icing made from powered sugar and a liquid. It sets into a glossy finish, and adds a nice sweet touch on top of baked goods, without being excessively sweet. It’s popular to use a glaze on donuts, pound cakes, bundt cakes, muffins, and other pastries.
- Quick Description: A pourable glaze for topping pastries.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Sweetness: Moderate to very sweet
- Appearance: Glossy and white
- Texture: Thin and runny when poured, but can harden when dried.
- Best Used For: Delicious drizzled over donuts, muffins, scones and other pastries.
New Frosting Recipes to Try
This Coconut Pecan Frosting is the frosting you’ll most commonly find on German Chocolate Cake. It’s also delicious on other desserts, like cookies or brownies, its such a good combination with chocolate! This frosting has a delicious caramel flavor that is made from cooking egg yolks, evaporated milk, sugar and butter, then of course mixing in the shredded coconut and pecans.
- Quick Description: A rich caramel like frosting with coconut and pecans
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Chunky and glossy with a brown color.
- Texture: Thick and slightly chewy with coconut pieces
- Best Used For: Great for german chocolate and chocolate desserts.
Caramel Frosting is so rich and creamy and is made by cooking up your own caramel sauce, then mixing in butter and powdered sugar. It’s buttery, sweet, smooth, and easy to make in not too much time, and is so good for piping on cakes and cupcakes. It’s especially delicious paired with spice cakes, apple desserts, or with pumpkin, or vanilla cakes.
- Quick Description: A rich caramel flavored frosting with a smooth consistency.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Golden colored and smooth
- Texture: Soft and creamy
- Best Used For: Great for spiced desserts, like apple, pumpkin, or caramel cakes, layered cakes and cupcakes.
A lighter and fluffier version of cream cheese frosting, it can be maid extra airy, and a little less sweet by beating in some whipped cream. It’s super easy to make, and so good on cupcakes, cakes, or whoopie pies. It holds its shape well enough to be piped onto cupcakes, and practically melts in your mouth when eaten. If you haven’t tried it yet, it might become your new favorite.
- Quick Description: A soft, tangy frosting made w
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Moderately sweet
- Appearance: Smooth, creamy, and fluffy
- Texture: Light and fluffy
- Best Used For: Delicious on cakes and cupcakes where you want a less dense cream cheese option, great with vanilla, pumpkin, or chocolate.
Made by making a Chocolate Ganache, this frosting is only 4 ingredients, by melting chocolate in hot cream, then whipping it into a spreadable frosting, with a consistency similar to chocolate mousse. It’s so light and fluffy, and great for layered cakes and cupcakes! It would also be great for filling profiteroles, or cream puffs.
- Quick Description: A rich flavored, fluffy chocolate frosting
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Moderate to very sweet, depending what chocolate percentage was used
- Appearance: Airy and chocolate brown colored
- Texture: Light and creamy, and can be piped
- Best Used For: Great for any cakes, cupcakes, or filling pastries, for chocolate lovers.
Marshmallow Frosting
Made with marshmallow fluff, butter, and powdered sugar this marshmallow frosting comes together in just a few minutes. It’s a little sticky, but still can be piped and hold it’s shape. It’s great on any type of cake, cookies, or cupcakes, and is a classic flavor to use in chocolate whoopie pies!
- Quick Description: A sweet, soft frosting made with marshmallow cream.
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Sweetness: Very Sweet
- Appearance: Silky and white colored
- Texture: A bit sticky, fluffy and airy
- Best Used For: Great for a variety of cakes, cookies, or cupcakes, especially good with chocolate, or for s’mores inspired desserts.
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