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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!
Okay, so I am obviously impatient. The first time I made this frosting I was disappointed because it was runny like thin cream. I live in Australia, and I assumed I had too many things different to those in your recipe: I used white sugar (should I have used raw??), I used glucose syrup instead of corn syrup (corn syrup isn’t widely available in Australia, as in, I’ve never seen it in the shops!), and I used my Thermomix instead of a bench mixer. HOWEVER! I was determined to not give up, so I gave it another go, then when it was the same consistency as last time, I just left the Thermomix running. After about 10-15 minutes of mixing on speed 3, it separated, then BOOM! PERFECT BUTTERCREAM!! So light and fluffy – I can’t wait to decorate my cake tomorrow! Thank you so much, and thanks for telling everyone in the comments to KEEP MIXING! It does work ?
Awesome Stephanie. Thank you so much for trying it again and THANK YOU for coming back to let me know!!! -Krissy
I am making a cupcake wedding dress for a shower the nite before and won’t have the space to refridgerate it. Do you think it will hold its shape for about 14 hrs at room temp? Thinking about chilling the indiv cupcakes before frosting them may help? Cranking the A/C in the car for transporting?
Hi Cathey, I think if the temp isn’t above 72 you should be fine. Let me know how it works! -Krissy
Hello ! Does this recipe yield enough buttercream to decorate 30 cup cakes ? Thanks in advance.
Yep!
Do You think this icing could be made ahead of time and frozen for easy use later on?”?? Thank you for you help. Can’t wait to try this!
I’ve never frozen it. If you try it, will you come back and let me know if it works? thanks!
Hi Krissy, your first paragraph mentioned that this recipe freezes well. Can we get an update on how to use this buttercream after freezing? Thank you!
I just thaw in the refrigerator and give it a quick whip with a whisk. Works well if you make extra.
The frosting looks really beautiful n smooth, must da iced cake be refrigerated? When the cream made a head of time, must you store it in the fridge or can just keep at the counter untill use?
I like to refrigerate but make sure its at room temp before using/eating.
Turned out just like the picture. Definitely taste like butter with a slightly sweet taste. It frosted 36 cupcakes. I live at 4600 feet above sea level so I took it to 225 degrees.
I just made my parents the most amazing annversary cake ever!!!! I have never made a buttercream like this. It came out perfect and I LOVE the taste. So light and airy!!! TThank you so much!!! This buttercream is diffently a keeper!
A whole POUND of butter? I can hardly believe this! I want to try it, but I’m not a real baker, I just love to bake.
Hi Krissy, I have been looking for a new buttercream to try as the traditional icing is just too sweet especially when covering your cake with fondant, most people will peel off the fondant before diving into a peice of cake then only having a few bites, so I’m eager to see if this is less sweet. I’m going to be making my moms birthday cake in the next few days and it’s going to be fairly tall but only 8-9 inches round as I’m going to be painting a picture of her on it. I was going to make a raspberry buttercream for the filling and crumb coating now I’m wondering if I could adapt this buttercream with the raspberry purée afterwards? Do you think it would hold well together? Also, would you be able to paint on the buttercream or do you think adding a thin layer of fondant would be nescessary for the art work? I know this is a long post and I’m sorry for taking up soooo much room! Oh, last one I promise! I have to travel about 7-8hrs on the road to get to my moms how well do you think it would hold up in a car, and do you have any suggestions on the best way to transport it that distance? Thanks again for sharing this recipe, I will for sure let you know how it turns out if you think I should go for it with the raspberry purée!
Well, I totally suck for letting my comments build up without responding to them. I’m super sorry for the delay, esp since you were asking about a specific event. I was gonna recommend adding freeze dried raspberries. Also, this frosting holds up great for travel with or without fondant if its refrigerated.
First off let me just say AMAZING!!! Now that I’ve made it how best to store for use a few days later???