Strawberry Buttercream Frosting is a fluffy, sweet dessert topping with natural fruit flavor that makes it perfect to use on Valentine’s Day!
This light pink Frosting is the perfect dessert topping to use for someone who loves the color pink, Valentine’s day, a gender reveal party or any time that you want to bring a little extra flavor and fun to Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. Give my Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting a try for another flavored frosting!
Why You’ll Love This Frosting?
- It’s a beautiful color and doesn’t use any artificial color or flavoring.
- It can be whipped up in no time, lasts in the fridge for up to a month, or you can freeze it too!
Sabrina’s Strawberry Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Strawberry Buttercream Frosting is perfect to add to the top of Strawberry Cake or Strawberry Cupcakes. Once you’ve given the cake, or other baked good time to cool, you can pipe the pink frosting over the top for a beautiful finish. Or, for a larger dessert, use an offset spatula to spread it evenly on top. Then you’ll have a beautiful dessert perfect for Valentine’s, a birthday, or any other time you want a sweet, pink treat.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup freeze dried strawberry powder , about 1 cup pieces
- 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
- If you are starting with freeze dried strawberry pieces, pulse them in a food processor until they are a fine powder.
- To your stand mixer on low speed cream the butter and the freeze dried strawberry powder then start adding in the powdered sugar in ½ cup increments until fully combined then raise the speed to medium-high for 1 additional minute.
- Add in the vanilla and heavy cream and beat until light and fluffy for 1 minute.
- Add frosting to piping bag and frost your cooled cupcakes.
Nutrition
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Note from Sabrina
The great thing about this frosting is that you can use it with other freeze dried fruits too. Use the same Buttercream Base to make a variety of frosting flavors. I’ve used freeze dried raspberries or blueberries to make other kinds of berry frostings. You can also add a little orange extract or lemon juice to go along with the berry flavors in the recipe.
Table of contents
About this Recipe
This frosting is similar to classic vanilla frosting, but with the addition of freeze dried strawberry powder. The addition of the powder, gives the vanilla frosting a fresh taste that’s great for adding to vanilla, chocolate, or fruit desserts. You can make this strawberry frosting recipe in just a few minutes. It’s perfect to mix together while your dessert is baking, or while it’s cooling.
Ingredients
- Buttercream: The base of this recipe is made with the same ingredients you’d have in traditional vanilla buttercream frosting. Butter, powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla are all whipped together into a light fluffy consistency. Then the strawberry ingredient gives it a more interesting, fruity, flavor.
- Powdered Sugar: Using powdered sugar is important in any frosting recipe. It’s much lighter than granulated sugar, so you can have the light fluffy frosting you want.
- Freeze Dried Strawberries: Using freeze dried strawberry powder for the strawberry taste is a great way to avoid artificial flavors. Freeze dried strawberries are made with real strawberries so the fresh strawberry flavor is much more natural. Because you’re using real strawberries, they also have a naturally vibrant color, which gives the buttercream a light pink color without using pink food coloring. It’s a great alternative to gel food coloring or any synthetic flavors.
Can this be made ahead of time?
Yes, this frosting is actually perfect for being made ahead of time because it can last for up to a month in the fridge. It can also be frozen, and then you can just pull it out to thaw when you are ready to use it.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Prep Time: Before making the frosting, take cold butter out of the fridge so it has time to warm up. Then the room temperature butter will whip more easily into the other ingredients.
- Butter Mixture: Add the softened butter to your stand mixer along with the freeze dried strawberries. Then use a paddle attachment or whisk attachment to cream butter at slow speed. Because you’re going at a low speed it might take a few minutes to mix.
- Sugar: Once the butter is combined, start adding the powdered sugar ½ cup at a time. Keep the mixer at low speed at first, then when the dry ingredients are combined in, turn it to medium high to whip butter for an additional minute.
- Cream: Add the vanilla extract and heavy cream, and stir at medium speed until light and fluffy. You can add additional cream as necessary to get the right consistency.
- Finish: Transfer your Strawberry Buttercream Frosting to a piping bag to add to cooled cupcakes, or use a rubber spatula to spread it over a regular cake.
How to Store
- Serve: If you’ve already added the frosting to a cake or another dessert, you can keep the frosted cake at room temperature for up to 3 days. Just cover the homemade strawberry cake in plastic wrap so that the frosting stays soft and the cake stays moist.
- Store: Alternatively, you can put the covered dessert in the fridge. Or, if you haven’t used the frosting yet, transfer it to an airtight container for later use. Then it can stay in the fridge and keep it’s natural strawberry flavor for up to 1 month.
- Freeze: You can also freeze Strawberry Buttercream Frosting for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to use it, put it in the fridge overnight to thaw. Then let it sit at room temperature for a few hours before you whip it again to regain its fluffy consistency.
Variations
- Strawberry Flavor: To add extra strawberry flavor to the Strawberry Buttercream Frosting there are a few delicious options. The first is swirling Strawberry Jam into the frosting mixture. Or, you could make a fresh strawberry puree to swirl into the frosting. Simply add fresh strawberries to a food processor and pulse. Then when the fresh berries are pulsed into a puree, you can use a butter knife to swirl the mixture into the frosting.
- Vegan Frosting: If you’re on a vegan diet, you can still enjoy this delicious dessert topping with a few exchanges. Firstly, you’ll need to use a vegan butter. You should be able to find vegan butter options at most grocery stores. Similarly, you can buy dairy-free heavy cream to whip into the vegan frosting recipe.
- Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting: To get a natural strawberry flavor in cream cheese frosting, just follow my classic Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, but with the addition of freeze dried strawberries in the cream cheese mixture.
- Decorations: Once the buttercream is added there are lots of fun ways you can decorate it. Try adding sprinkles, shaved chocolate, sanding sugar, or slicing fresh strawberries to add to the top of the fluffy frosting.
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