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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Recipes / Dessert Recipes / Cake Recipes / Traditional Buttercream Frosting

Traditional Buttercream Frosting

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

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Classic recipe for real buttercream frosting that uses grassfed butter to maximize the nutrient density of this sweet topping for cakes and cupcakes.

Bet you never thought that a birthday cake could be nutrient-dense!

Well, it can, and your kids will be smacking their lips and loving every crumb on their plates! 

When my children have a birthday, I make traditional butter frosting for their cake with deep yellow grassfed butter (preferably from raw cream or, at least, regular pasteurized cream (not ultrapasteurized).

Remember the video lesson/recipe on how to make raw butter?

I used that exact container of raw butter just a few days later to make nutrient-dense buttercream frosting shown in the picture above for my son’s birthday party.

If your kids won’t eat much butter, a lovely homemade cake slathered with butter frosting is a great way to get a bunch of this sacred food into them. My children most enjoy it atop devil’s food cake.

You’re going to make a cake anyway, so why not make it as full of nutrients as possible?

Let me also share that butter frosting made with pastured, raw butter has a flavor so amazing it can’t be described, only experienced!

You can even make homemade powdered sugar with a whole sweetener like coconut or cane jaggery, sucanat, or palm sugar. Although very healthy, I do not recommend date sugar as it does not dissolve well in frosting recipes.

What about if you wish to buy cake frosting? Unfortunately, I have not found a good brand to recommend. Even organic frosting brands that I’ve vetted have undesirable additives such as fake “natural flavors” and do not have the nutrient density of real buttercream made with actual butter!

*This recipe makes enough frosting for two-layer 8- or 9-inch cakes or 18–24 cupcakes.

cake with real buttercream frosting on a white plate
4.84 from 6 votes
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Real Buttercream Frosting

Classic recipe for real buttercream frosting that uses grassfed butter to maximize the nutrient density of this sweet topping for cakes and cupcakes.

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword easy, fast, healthy fats, nutrient dense, traditonal
Total Time 10 minutes
Servings 24
Calories 115 kcal
Author Sarah Pope

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup grassfed butter softened
  • 5-6 cups powdered sugar sifted
  • 1/3 cup whole milk preferably grassfed
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Thoroughly powderize whole sweetener of choice (sucanat, jaggery or coconut sugar) in a food processor or blender, sift and measure into a bowl until desired quantity is reached and set aside.

    If you cannot get the sugar to powderize sufficiently or do not care for the taste of molasses, use sifted organic powdered white sugar instead. 

  2. In a large glass bowl, whip butter until creamy and fluffy. Gradually beat in 3 cups of the powdered sugar.

  3. Slowly beat in the milk and vanilla. Beat in the remaining sugar and add additional milk to obtain the desired spreading consistency to the butter frosting.

  4. Spread the butter frosting on the cake as desired or just enjoy it off the spoon!

Recipe Notes

Never use nonorganic powdered sugar in North America as it will almost certainly contain GMO beet sugar.

Nutrition Facts
Real Buttercream Frosting
Amount Per Serving (2 Tbsp)
Calories 115 Calories from Fat 36
% Daily Value*
Fat 4g6%
Saturated Fat 2.5g13%
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.2g
Monounsaturated Fat 1g
Cholesterol 11mg4%
Carbohydrates 20g7%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
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Category: Cake Recipes
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: Amazon #1 bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (57)

  1. Melissa

    May 22, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    We have made a similar recipe before… the only difference is that we add a couple free-range egg yolks to the icing đŸ™‚ The yolks make the icing a lovely dark yellow color, and the taste is to die for! We love birthdays đŸ™‚

    Reply
  2. Alexis

    May 21, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    I have coconut sugar…can that be used while on the gaps diet? Do you know?

    Reply
  3. Sarah Schneider via Facebook

    May 21, 2012 at 8:10 pm

    Thank you, I will give this a try as we have 5 birthdays in June!

    Reply
  4. Lara

    May 21, 2012 at 5:56 pm

    Are you sure that is the right amount of sugar-5 to 6 cups as that does sound a huge amount. I just used homemade cream cheese and whip some butter and maple syrup in it and it is wonderful

    Reply
    • Kelsey

      May 21, 2012 at 6:28 pm

      That’s a very typical amount of powdered sugar for a buttercream frosting recipe. I grew up making lots of buttercream frosting – it’s what we always frosted cakes and sugar cookies with. This is basically the exact same recipe we used. It’s delish!

  5. Raechelle

    May 21, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    Looks delish; but now you’ll have to give us that cake recipe too! :-0

    Reply
  6. Summer

    May 21, 2012 at 5:19 pm

    Hmm..I’m wondering about those 5-6 cups of sugar. We don’t use that much sugar in one year and I’d be awfully hesitant to give that to my children. I like the healthy fat idea, but seems that the sugar would negate any health value.

    Reply
    • Lauren

      Aug 12, 2014 at 1:40 am

      well…youre going to give them cake arent you?!

    • Sarah

      Apr 2, 2018 at 4:13 pm

      It makes enough frosting for a very large cake. Make less if you like.

  7. Mark Felton via Facebook

    May 21, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    5 cups of sugar != nutrient dense

    Reply
  8. Julia Hansen via Facebook

    May 21, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    This looks delicious! I’d love to try it! Right now I am in love with the Raw buttercream I have been making (also with raw egg yolks!) Made with honey too so it’s GAPS legal! This looks easier though, and that is a nice plus!

    Reply
  9. Katie Doran Kephart via Facebook

    May 21, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    Thank you this looks great!

    Reply
  10. Elizabeth

    May 21, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    I was also going to ask for the cake recipe!~

    Reply
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