Honey Buttercream Frosting
Learn how to make homemade frosting with this easy recipe. This Honey Buttercream Frosting is light, sweet, and perfect for topping cakes and cupcakes, or filling sandwich cookies!
If you’re looking for more homemade frosting recipes, be sure to check out some of my other favorites like Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting, Easy Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting, Peanut Butter Caramel Chocolate Ganache Frosting, Strawberry Buttercream with Fresh or Freeze Dried Strawberries, or Caramel Buttercream Frosting.
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Honey Buttercream Frosting
- Ready In: 10 minutes
- Makes: 12 servings
- Main Ingredients: butter, honey, powdered sugar
- Flavor Profile: sweet honey
- Dietary Info: eggless, gluten free, no seed oils
- Difficulty: Easy!
- Why You’ll Love It: fluffy texture, creamy mouthfeel, homemade frosting with honey
Summarize & Save This Content On
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Homemade Frosting: This simple honey buttercream goes with so many flavor profiles. You can use this to top any of your favorite cakes, cupcakes, brownies, or cookies.
- Light & Sweet: This easy honey buttercream frosting is light and sweet. If you like vanilla frosting, but want a little something more, then you will love this homemade frosting recipe.
- Easy: This honey buttercream is so simple! This is a classic American buttercream recipe with the addition of honey. It whips up in your stand mixer in just a few minutes and it’s ready to use!
- Use for Anything: Anywhere that calls for frosting, you can use this honey buttercream. Whether it's cookies, cakes, cupcakes or other treats, this is a delicious addition to so many baked goods!
Ingredients
- Butter: I use organic salted butter as the salted butter helps balance out the honey. You can use unsalted butter if you like, just taste and see if you want to add a pinch of salt. Also, check out Best Salted Butter for Baking for my test of the best butter for frosting!
- Powdered Sugar: I use organic powdered sugar, be sure its sifted well so your frosting is smooth and creamy.
- Honey: I use organic raw honey, which provides natural sweetness in this homemade frosting.
- Vanilla Extract: Use a high quality vanilla extract, not imitation.
*For a full list of ingredients and measurements, visit the recipe card below.
Baker's Tips
- Always weigh ingredients for the best results. Plus, honey is so much easier to weigh right into the stand mixing bowl as it's so sticky!
- I use my stand mixer for ease, but any electric mixer will work. If you are using a hand mixer, make sure to use a large mixing bowl as there's a lot of powdered sugar. If you are using a hand mixer, you'll want to add in the powdered sugar in stages, this way it mixes in easily. You'll also need to go from low speed to medium speed, to high speed more gradually as you mix in the powdered sugar.
- Make sure to use room temperature butter so it's soft. Cold butter is not ideal as it is difficult to mix into powdered sugar and we already need to whip this for 3-5 minutes, if you use cold butter this will take so much longer!
- One of my top tricks for ensuring powdered sugar doesn't fly everywhere is to pulse the mixer at first. This will ensure that the powdered sugar gets incorporated into the butter slowly without it flying everywhere!
- Scraping down the sides of the bowl part way through mixing is essential. This ensures that butter pieces that are stuck to the sides get incorporated and there's no chunks of anything.
- Be sure to whip frosting well so it's light and fluffy.
- Store extra frosting in an airtight container in the fridge.
- You can re-whip frosting from the refrigerator to make it soft and fluffy again. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl when doing this to incorporate all the dried portions.
How to Make Honey Buttercream Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter, powdered sugar, honey, and vanilla extract.
- Mix on low until combined, then speed mixer up to high and mix for 2 to 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl part way through mixing, this ensures everything is mixed. Mix again for another few minutes.
- Then it's ready to use on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and more.
How to Use Honey Buttercream Frosting
Snack Cakes
This frosting recipe is a perfect topping for an 8×8-inch snack cake or a 9×9-inch snack cake. You can also use this Honey Buttercream for an 8-inch round or 9-inch round one layer cake.
Try it on Festive Gingerbread Snack Cake Without Frosting if you want to add frosting here (it's delicious!). Use it on Birthday Bundt Cake, Best Meyer Lemon Pound Cake, Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Cake, or Sourdough Carrot Snack Cake.
Layer Cakes
This Honey Buttercream Frosting recipe can be used for layer cakes. This recipe will be enough for a two layer 6-inch cake or a three layer 6-inch cake. If you have a 8-inch or 9-inch layer cake, you should double the recipe.
You can replace the frosting with this honey buttercream in recipes like Simple Naked Birthday Cake, Eggless Strawberry Zucchini Cake, or Eggless Birthday Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Cupcakes
This recipe will frost a dozen cupcakes. If you’re making more, you can double or triple it by hitting the 2x or 3x button on the recipe card. Try it on cupcake recipes like Brown Sugar Carrot Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting, Simple Vanilla Cupcakes, Chocolate Cupcakes Without a Mixer or Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes.
Loaf Cakes
You can use this Honey Buttercream to frost your favorite loaf cake. It would be delicious with a lemon loaf, chocolate loaf, vanilla loaf, or even an orange loaf! Try it on top of Cranberry Orange Apple Bread, Best Meyer Lemon Pound Cake, Cinnamon Sweet Potato Bread Without Eggs, or Traditional Butter Pound Cake Loaf.
Cookies
This recipe will be good for about one batch of cookies. It will frost about 2 dozen small cookies or 1 dozen large cookies. You can also use it to fill sandwich cookies, it will fill about 12 to 18 small sandwich cookies.
Try it in place of the filling in recipes like Homemade Vanilla Oreo Cookies, Strawberry Lemonade Sandwich Cookies, Lemon Rosemary Sandwich Cookies, or Earl Grey Sandwich Cookies.
Brownies or Blondies
If you want to add some sweetness to your brownies or blondes, this easy Honey Buttercream Frosting recipe is perfect for topping brownies. This recipe is the perfect amount for a brownie recipe made in a 9-inch or 8-inch pan. If you’re making a 9×13-inch pan of brownies, you should double the recipe. I love this on top of Organic Brownies with Bone Broth or Organic Sugar Cookie Bars With Frosting.
Recipe FAQ's
No, we're still using the same amount of powdered sugar as regular buttercream, but with the addition of honey.
This isn't overly honey, but it has a wonderful warm and floral honey flavor that compliments the sweet frosting.
I prefer salted butter, always! But, especially here it helps balance out the sweetness. You can use unsalted butter if you want, but taste to ensure you like it. You can always add in a little pinch of salt if using unsalted butter.
No, this recipe will work any sort of honey you prefer. I always prefer raw honey as it has not been heated.
I like to use organic raw honey, but you can really use any kind that you like.
No, you can't use all honey. We need powdered sugar in buttercream frosting for stability. This allows it to be able to be piped and also hold up well on cupcakes and cakes. The honey is just flavoring the frosting, we can't use it solely for sweetening it.
If you don't whip it enough or don't sift powdered sugar, this can happen. Be sure to sift powdered sugar and whip it long enough so it gets smooth and creamy.
If your buttercream is too soft for what you need, you can add in a little more sifted powdered sugar until you get the desired consistency. It shouldn't be too soft unless there was too much butter or honey or not enough powdered sugar. So, be sure to use a digital food scale and follow the recipe instructions for the best results.
You can use this easy Honey Buttercream Frosting recipe for everything from cakes to cupcakes and cookies to brownies! Use it to top snack cakes, frost cupcakes and layer cakes, pipe on top of brownies or fill sandwich cookies. Anywhere that frosting is used, you could use this!
I love using this honey buttercream with vanilla cake, chocolate cake, and pumpkin cake! It's also so delicious with fruity flavors as well such as strawberry, lemon and blueberry. It's similar to vanilla but with the addition of a honey, so it's a really great flavor that pairs so well with most everything.
Absolutely! Honey buttercream is actually a bit smoother than some other flavors because of the addition of honey. So, it's really a perfect flavor for piping!
Yes! The color is a light tan so it takes on coloring very well. Check out my post The Best Natural Food Dyes & Sprinkles for my top picks for natural food dyes that you can use for frosting!
If you have extra frosting, store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
More Honey Dessert Recipes
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Honey Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
- Digital Food Scale
- Stand Mixer
Ingredients
- 226 grams salted butter (softened)
- 454 grams powdered sugar (sifted)
- 43 grams raw honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter, powdered sugar, honey, and vanilla extract.
- Mix on low until combined, then speed mixer up to high and mix for 2 to 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl part way through mixing, this ensures everything is mixed. Mix again for another few minutes.
- Then it's ready to use on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and more!
Video
Notes
- Always weigh ingredients for the best results. Plus, honey is so much easier to weigh right into the stand mixing bowl as it's so sticky!
- I use my stand mixer for ease, but any electric mixer will work. If you are using a hand mixer, make sure to use a large mixing bowl as there's a lot of powdered sugar. If you are using a hand mixer, you'll want to add in the powdered sugar in stages, this way it mixes in easily. You'll also need to go from low speed to medium speed, to high speed more gradually as you mix in the powdered sugar.
- Make sure to use room temperature butter so it's soft. Cold butter is not ideal as it is difficult to mix into powdered sugar and we already need to whip this for 3-5 minutes, if you use cold butter this will take so much longer!
- One of my top tricks for ensuring powdered sugar doesn't fly everywhere is to pulse the mixer at first. This will ensure that the powdered sugar gets incorporated into the butter slowly without it flying everywhere!
- Scraping down the sides of the bowl part way through mixing is essential. This ensures that butter pieces that are stuck to the sides get incorporated and there's no chunks of anything.
- Be sure to whip frosting well so it's light and fluffy.
- Store extra frosting in an airtight container in the fridge.
- You can re-whip frosting from the refrigerator to make it soft and fluffy again. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl when doing this to incorporate all the dried portions.
- High Altitude — Follow the recipe as noted.
Nutrition
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Love how lightly sweet this is!