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Perfect Italian Buttercream Frosting is a rich, smooth, and incredibly delicious traditional icing that is the best choice to decorate cakes and cupcakes.
This is the same kind of buttercream frosting that you’ll find on many professional wedding cakes. Its silky texture is unlike any other frosting or icing recipe that you’ll ever find, it is gorgeous when piped, and can be flavored and colored in countless ways.
Why this recipe works:
When you consider how perfectly smooth, rich, creamy, and heavenly this buttercream frosting is and how incredibly easy it is to use for decorating, it will soon be one of your favorites.
- Italian buttercream is considered more difficult than traditional American buttercream only because you must get the hot sugar syrup to an exact temperature, but once you get the hang of this recipe it is actually super easy to make.
- This frosting is a decorator’s dream! It is incredibly smooth and creamy. When refrigerated it gets hard because of all the butter, which makes it perfect as a crumb coat before your final layer of frosting or fondant is added.
- Italian buttercream holds up really well at room temperature. You can use it to decorate both cakes and cupcakes.
- If you like a frosting that is rich and buttery and not too sweet, this is your kind of recipe!
Whether you use it for a dry crumb frosting base only before adding fondant and fancy decorations, or you cover the entire cake in buttercream frosting, it truly is one of the most gorgeous things you can put on a cake.
How to make my Italian buttercream:
- First step is to get the sugar mixture to the soft ball stage. This is done by heating the sugar and corn syrup in a pot over the stove. You must use a good thermometer to ensure it is the correct temperature.
- Next you will beat the egg whites. Once they begin to get foamy but soft peaks haven’t formed, you will add the hot sugar syrup.
- Then you will add the softened butter, one cube at a time.
- Finally, you will mix in the vanilla extract. If you’re wanting to color the frosting, this is when you would add the food coloring.
Cooking tips:
- You must get your sugar to the soft-ball stage which is 235 degrees F. I live close to sea level, so this is the temperature I go by. At high altitudes, water boils at a lower temperature. For example, at 4500 feet above sea level, water boils at 204° F. If candy is cooked until it reaches the soft-ball stage on a candy thermometer, it will have cooked too long.
- I add a bit of corn syrup to my recipe because it adds a beautiful sheen, but this can be omitted if you want to make a pure Italian buttercream recipe.
- I recommend mixing the egg whites while the sugar syrup heats up. Ideally you want them ready as soon as the sugar syrup hits it’s temperature.
- When you whip your egg whites, you want them to have a lot of air and a beautiful sheen, but do not let them get to the stiff peak stage.
- Remember to be patient. I’ve had a lot of readers who had this recipe turn out perfectly and others who couldn’t get it to work. Once you start adding the butter, it will look awful, but you just have to keep mix and just like magic, you will end up with the best buttercream frosting.
Different types of buttercream frosting:
If you’re like me, you probably grew up making what is considered American buttercream. As far as taste goes, that is still my preference, but some consider it too sweet.
If you didn’t realize there are different kinds of buttercream frosting, here’s a quick summary:
- AMERICAN: Powdered sugar + softened butter + milk + vanilla
- SWISS MERINGUE: Egg whites + sugar whisked together over boiling water and then beaten with butter
- FRENCH: Egg yolks + homemade sugar syrup + butter
- ITALIAN: Homemade sugar syrup + egg whites + white sugar + softened butter
Related Recipes:
Since Italian Buttercream can be more difficult to make, you might be more interested in making these other super easy frosting recipes:
- Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Frosting
- Mascarpone Frosting
- Cream Cheese Frosting
- Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting
And what good is frosting without a delicious, moist, scratch made cupcake or cake recipe!
- Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes
- Carrot Cake
- Hummingbird Cake
- Lemon Cupcakes
- Orange Cupcakes
- Traditional Yellow Cake
- Super Easy Chocolate Cake
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Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
- 5 egg whites approx 185g
- 1 lb unsalted butter softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Add the sugar and corn syrup to a small saucepan, drizzle a few tablespoons of water over the sugar, and stir together until the sugar is all moistened. It will have a wet sand feeling about it. Cook the sugar over medium high to high heat to the softball stage of 235 F using a candy thermometer. Use a pastry brush to lightly water down the inner sides of the sauce pan to prevent crystallization. When the sugar is done, turn off the burner (if gas), or move the pan off the burner (if electric).
- Begin to whip your egg whites with a whip attachment in a stand mixer. When the meringue begins to look opaque, but is not to any sort of ‘peak’ stage yet, slowly pour the cooked sugar syrup down the side of the mixing bowl, as the mixture is whipping on a medium speed. Allow the mixture to whip until glossy medium peaks form and the meringue is cool to the touch.
- Turn the mixer on a low speed, and add the butter, one stick at a time. Be sure meringue is cool to the touch first so that the butter doesn't melt! Mix until the mixture comes together. Don't be scared! The mixture will separate and look terrible before it comes together again, which It will- I promise. Be patient.
- Once the mixture is smooth and wonderful-looking, add the vanilla and whip just until combined.
Notes
- You must get your sugar to the soft-ball stage which is 235 degrees F. I live close to sea level, so this is the temperature I go by. At high altitudes, water boils at a lower temperature. For example, at 4500 feet above sea level, water boils at 204° F. If candy is cooked until it reaches the soft-ball stage on a candy thermometer, it will have cooked too long.
- I add a bit of corn syrup to my recipe because it adds a beautiful sheen, but this can be omitted if you want to make a pure Italian buttercream recipe.
- I recommend mixing the egg whites while the sugar syrup heats up. Ideally you want them ready as soon as the sugar syrup hits it’s temperature.
- When you whip your egg whites, you want them to have a lot of air and a beautiful sheen, but do not let them get to the stiff peak stage.
- Remember to be patient. I’ve had a lot of readers who had this recipe turn out perfectly and others who couldn’t get it to work. Once you start adding the butter, it will look awful, but you just have to keep mix and just like magic, you will end up with the best buttercream frosting.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This recipe was originally published in November 2017 and has been updated with helpful information, ingredient and process photos, as well as recipe tips. Don’t worry – the recipe hasn’t changed!
Hi, thanks for sharing this fantastic buttercream recipe. Can you use this buttercream for a wedding cake instead of the traditional buttercream?
Of course!
Italian meringue(which this recipe actually is) is all that oI pretty much use for my wedding cakes. Because it is butter only it will not hold up so well in the heat so I do substitute some shortening in place of butter for the stability wAnd does not change the light flavor
This worked amazingly!! ?? Thank you for posting this recipe this is such an amazing one!
Tried this. Still clumpy and not coming together. Did I do something wrong??
keep mixing!
You make this look so easy =)
Can this be colored? or would you need to use a special medium to add to the color then to the frosting?
I would us a gel instead of a liquid
How well would this transport? Like in a car in the middle of summer???
It can’t get too hot. I’d say the frosting needs to stay under 72F.
It IS primarily butter, right? So, I’d be cautious about putting it in the car, in the middle of summer. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe a cooler, with ice packs might work.
Hi! This recipe looks yummy and perfect but I messed up on the 1st try… when melting the sugar it turned brown, it did not stay clear as shown.. what did I do wrong???? When pouring into the egg mix it turned into hard rock candy :/ thanks
You must have heated it too much. You have to be exact with the temp.
Temperature for the sugar mixture also depends on your altitude above sea level. If you live a few thousand feet or more above sea level, you have to adjust the temperatures for cooking any kind of sugars/sugar mixtures. I live at 6,000 feet or so above sea level & my adjustment is 12° less than the temp listed (so I would bring my sugar mixture to 223°F instead of 235°F). I would say if you’re at 3,000 ft. or above to start adjusting temps. The adjustment is down 1° for every 500 feet above sea level or down 2° for every 1,000 feet above sea level (that’s why I adjust down 12°). Hope this helps for anyone who had problems with sugar mixture cooking too much/overcooking!
Thank you for the info!
I wonder if I could make this with coconut sugar?
I typically don’t mess with the ingredients when its something like this because its more of a chemistry experiment and you have to be pretty exact.
what happens if i used salted butter? It’s all i have… would it taste weird?
I never think salted butter tastes weird. Just different. But, because it’s sweet, I’m sure it will work!
Hello, how many tablespoon does 185g of egg white equal
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