This American Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is silky, whipped, decadent, and chocolatey with just the right amount of sweetness. It has 6 simple ingredients and takes just 6 minutes to make.
This Chocolate Buttercream spreads and pipes beautifully over chocolate cakes and cupcakes so it’s perfect for all of your baking projects.
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We love homemade frosting recipes from Vanilla Buttercream to Cream Cheese Frosting and of course, this easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. In fact, we loved it so much that I even used it on my daughter’s Chocolate Birthday Cake in Natasha’s Kitchen Cookbook. Homemade frostings use higher-quality ingredients and taste way better than store-bought.
Chocolate Frosting Video Tutorial
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Chocolate Buttercream Recipe
This chocolate buttercream frosting is thick and fluffy. It holds its shape well, just like Swiss Meringue Buttercream so it’s great for decorating and piping. It also has a rich chocolate flavor.
How much frosting does this make?
Frosting Cupcakes? This recipe yields about 2 1/4 cups frosting and generously frosts 12 cupcakes or lightly frosts 24 cupcakes.
Frosting a Cakes? To frost a 9” 2-layer cake, increase the recipe by 50% (i.e. 1 1/2 cups butter, 4 1/2 cups sugar, etc).
The Key to Great Chocolate Buttercream
Soften Butter Correctly – For the best-textured buttercream, make sure the butter is at the correct temperature. Properly softened butter should be left at room temperature for about 1 1/2 hours, or watch our video on how to soften butter in 5 minutes.
Your butter should feel cool to the touch and you should be able to indent it with your fingertip. Never melt or over-soften butter for the frosting or it will become too thin and greasy.
Scrape down the bowl several times while mixing to ensure your chocolate and sugar are incorporated with the butter. If you don’t scrape down the bowl, your frosting will have streaks of cocoa and won’t be uniform in color. It will be especially obvious if you pipe the frosting.
Ingredients for Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
- Unsalted butter – should be softened at room temperature. Use unsalted so you can control the salt in the recipe.
- Confectioners sugar – also known as powdered sugar. This is measured before sifting (sifting is not necessary).
- Cocoa powder – natural unsweetened cocoa powder or Dutch process.
- Heavy whipping cream – lightens up and thins the frosting.
- Vanilla extract – we use real vanilla extract for the best flavor.
- Salt – balances the sweetness of the buttercream. It’s the secret ingredient in buttercream that makes it taste not too sweet. We use fine sea salt.
How to Make Chocolate Buttercream
The best Chocolate Buttercream is easier and takes less time than you think!
- Beat butter in a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment on high speed for 3 minutes until creamy and lightened in color.
- Add remaining ingredients – powdered sugar, cocoa powder, heavy cream, vanilla extract, and salt.
- Beat together on low speed until powdered sugar is incorporated then on medium/high speed for another 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl several times. Add more cream at the end if needed to thin the frosting.
Pro Tip:
Use a silicone spatula to scrape down the bowl several times while mixing to ensure the frosting is evenly blended and even in color and texture.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can use unsweetened natural cocoa powder such as Hershey’s brand, or use Dutch process cocoa powder to make chocolate buttercream.
You can thin the frosting with milk instead of heavy cream, but you may need slightly less. Add it until you reach your desired texture.
You can easily double the recipe, increasing your mixing times slightly.
Funny story, I spent years sifting the dry ingredients for this recipe until I decided to skip the step one day and found it did not make a difference. The ingredients will be incorporated easily without sifting.
How to Serve Chocolate Buttercream
This frosting is delicious over cakes, cupcakes, sweet bread, cookies you name it! Here are some of our favorite ways to use Chocolate Buttercream frosting:
- Chocolate Cupcakes
- Sugar Cookies
- Vanilla Cupcakes
- Honey Cupcakes
- Greek Yogurt Cupcakes
- Chocolate Cake or Vanilla Cake – scale it up by 50% for a 2-layer cake.
Enjoy this easy 6-minute Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. It’s one I’ve been making for years and I will never stop loving this recipe.
Make-Ahead
- To Refrigerate: Store in an airtight container or ziploc bag for up to a week (do not store near fish or meat as it may absorb those fridge odors). Bring to room temperature and re-whip to make the frosting fluffy.
- Freezing: Package the same way as for refrigerating, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight then bring to room temperature before re-whipping to a fluffy consistency.
More Homemade Frosting Recipes
If you love to bake, here are the frosting recipes that you should have in your recipe box. They are my go-to’s for cakes and cupcakes:
- Vanilla Cupcake Frosting
- Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
- Chocolate Ganache
- Cinnamon Roll Icing
- Blackberry Frosting
- White Chocolate Frosting
- Homemade Whipped Cream
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (6-Minute Recipe)
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 3 cups confectioners sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 3 to 4 Tbsp heavy whipping cream, plus more to thin the frosting
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- With a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat butter on high speed for about 3 minutes or until creamy and lightened in color, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Add confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, 3 Tbsp heavy cream, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/4 tsp salt.
- Beat on low speed until sugar is incorporated then increase to medium/high speed and beat for 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl several times to ensure everything is well blended. Add another Tablespoon of heavy cream if needed to thin the frosting.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
This is the best frosting! I used salted butter and didn’t add any salt. I will use this recipe always. I used it on my wedding cake!
Hi Becky! That’s wonderful. I’m so glad you found a new go-to recipe!
Very creamy and not to sweet not to chocolaty and overall delicious
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, J!
Chocolate buttercream frosting was a big hit at a birthday party. So many compliments about how light and fluffy it was.
That’s great, Bonna! So glad to hear that.
Until I tried this recipe, I had never had any luck using my Pampered chef decorator tool to frost cupcakes. This not only tastes wonderful but was easy to fill the tube and press out beautifully frosting!
That’s wonderful! Thank you so much for that feedback.
This is by far the best chocolate frosting I’ve ever tasted! It’s easy to make, smooth, creamy and so delicious. Definitely my new go to.
Hi Susan! I’m so glad you found a new favorite on my blog! I hope you try more recipes soon!
This is literally the best chocolate frosting I’ve ever tasted and now I have the power to make it at home.. It’s so smooth and creamy.. And can frost more than the 12 cupcakes it states.. I’ll definitely be making this repeatedly..
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite, Chels!
I’ve made this before according to the recipe & loved it. Today I made it using plant-based butter & whipping cream to accommodate a family member’s dietary restriction-absolutely delicious!
Hi Martha! That’s amazing. I’m so glad it turned out for you.
Second time making this and I just can’t believe that something so delicious can be so easy. Amazing chocolate taste.
Hi B! I’m so glad you love it! Thank you for the feedback!
Hello Natasha, big fan love your recipes! I just made your vanilla cake and it was absolutely Devine. I frosted it with chantilly cream and put it in the fridge overnight. When we cut another piece in the morning, it was not the same texture at all. I let it sit for 30min on the counter and it was amazing. I would love to make this cake and leave it covered on the counter with your 6 min chocolate buttercream but I’m not sure if it’s food safe to leave it that way or if it has to be refrigerated. The cake was so good it didn’t last 24hrs, but I would love to just cut a piece without having to wait the 30 min. Please advise and thank you for sharing your amazing recipes!
Hi Judy! That sounds amazing! This buttercream frosting is safe to leave a room temperature for several hours but I would refrigerate it if longer than 1 day.
Love this chocolate buttercream frosting. What chocolate cake recipe would you pair with it?
Hi Elizabeth! We love it with our go-to chocolate cake recipe.
Wonderful recipe! The flavor is amazing, I love the rich chocolate flavor! Do you have any cake recipes that are good with this frosting?
Hi Sunny! I’m glad you loved it. This frosting is very versatile and you can pair it with many cake recipes. You can view my cake category here for some ideas. A few that come to mind is the vanilla cake, chocolate cake or red velvet cake.
My frosting didn’t turn out as I expected to, and turned out very much like a liquid, and wasn’t very fluffy. The flavor was wonderful, and the consistency might have been my fault. Thank you so much for the recipe, trial and error is the best way to learn!
Hi Sunny! Did you make any substitutions to the recipe? Your butter should be soft, meaning when you press your finger into it, it leaves an indent but you don’t want it to be overly soft. Read through my process again to see if you missed anything. You can reduce the heavy cream if needed. The heavy cream is added to help thin out the frosting and give it a creamy and fluffy consistency if it’s too thick. The temperature in your kitchen could effect the consistency of your frosting as well. You can try to refrigerate it for a bit and then re-whip it for a few minutes to see if that helps thicken it up. I hope you give it a try again.
I have a question… if I want to skip cocoa powder do I need to add anything else of its fine with rest recipe to follow?
Please help
I haven’t tested this recipe without cocoa powder to advise. I recommend not skipping it to get the best results.
Hello! Similar to Jen’s comment below from April 8, 2023, I made the chocolate buttercream recipe, and it was too dark a chocolate flavor for my family. The recipe is a dream, and I loved the recipe itself, just wanted to know how to lighten the flavor so it is not quite so deep a chocolate flavor. Thanks! Your recipes are awesome!
Hi Nancy! This can depend on the type or brand of cocoa used, some are darker and more bitter than others which can cause the buttercream to taste like dark chocolate. You can reduce the cocoa amount and add this to your preferred taste. It may affect the texture so you may need to use less heavy cream.
Hi Natasha,
Can I add instant coffee to this buttercream recipe and how do I go about doing so ?
I can’t wait to try out your recipe!!
Hi Megan, I haven’t tested that one of our readers shared this “This recipe is amazing! I made chocolate-coffee cupcakes with this buttercream icing. Normally my buttercream icing separates, but using this recipe made the icing come out so delicious and fluffy. I’m using this recipe again!”
Made this recipe tonight, it makes an extremely dark chocolate flavor of buttercream. Very much not what I expected and took a lot more powdered sugar and vanilla to fix to what I wanted.
Wow, I am completely blown away by this recipe. First buttercream recipe I’ve tried that didn’t flop! The frosting was unbelievably sweet and creamy, almost like ice cream. This is definitely going in my recipe bookmarks! Thank you so much for this fantastic recipe 🙂
That’s just awesome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review, Kris!
Followed your recipe to a t and it came out way too thick that it burst a hole through my piping bag while trying to pipe it out and ruined my whole cake thanks!
Hi Mitch! I’m sorry to hear that. This can happen if the butter is too cold, it needed a little more heavy cream or mixed a while longer to get light and fluffy. The temperature in your house can also affect your buttercream consistency.
I just made this it is so easy and so delicious best chocolate buttercream frosting I’ve ever made
That’s wonderful, Kathy! So glad you loved it.
Best frosting I’ve ever had! And I’m 60 years old! I’ve never really cooked, but I certainly will start making my own frosting now. I’m finding most commercial desserts now rather uninteresting and usually too overly sweet. It is so rich and perfectly sweet and salty at the same time. Simply amazing! Now I need to learn to make the perfect yellow cake for it. I love chocolate cake but I think chocolate frosting is best on yellow cake. Thank you so very much!
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, Rebecca!