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, creamy, homemade frosting with honey

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!

Ingredients

• Butter: I use organic salted butter. You can use unsalted 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!
• Make sure butter is soft.
• 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

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter, powdered sugar, honey, and vanilla extract.

2. 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.

3. 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

More Honey Dessert Recipes

Eggless Strawberry Honey Galette

Honey Apple Carrot Cake

Olive Oil Honey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Honey Sesame Dark Chocolate Bark