Whipped Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting recipe is a light brown sugar whipped frosting that’s made without powdered sugar!
I love the whipped buttercream frostings because they are so light and creamy without being heavy or greasy.
They’re also pretty fantastic because you make the frosting without powdered sugar, so they’re perfect for those times when you don’t have any on-hand.
I’ve been thinking about making a brown sugar version for a while because some cakes pair so well with the caramel-y tones in brown sugar.
Anyway, this whipped brown sugar buttercream frosting doesn’t disappoint. It is incredibly light and super creamy.
It isn’t overpoweringly sweet either, so it pairs well with sweeter cakes. It’s especially good with fall-flavored cakes (i.e. pumpkin, apple, spice).
If you’ve never tried a whipped buttercream, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how good they are. This recipe makes enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes or a 9-inch 2 layer cake.
How to make whipped brown sugar buttercream frosting
Step 1: In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. It will be the consistency of a thick paste.
Step 2: Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.
Step 3: Stir in vanilla.
Step 4: While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy on medium high, about 3 minutes.
Step 5: Then add the completely cooled milk mixture.
Step 6: Beat it for about 5 minutes on medium-high to high until it looks like whipped cream. If you can still taste the sugar granules, keep beating it until you can’t.
Tips
There are a few places where things could go wrong in this recipe.
- First, not cooking the milk mixture long enough. The mixture should be a thick paste. If it’s too wet, the frosting will be too loose.
- Second, the cooked milk mixture needs to cool completely. If it’s too warm, it will melt the butter, and you’ll end up with loose frosting that doesn’t come together.
- Third, using butter that’s too warm. The butter should be at cool room temperature. It should dent if pushed, but it shouldn’t be too warm and certainly not beginning to melt.
- Fourth, using old brown sugar. Brown sugar that is hard and lumpy won’t mix well with the butter. It’s best to use soft, fresh brown sugar.
- Fifth, not whipped the frosting long enough. The frosting needs to be whipped to get the right light and airy texture. Cutting the time short could leave you with a grainy frosting or a frosting that separates.
Storage
Any leftover frosting or cake/cupcakes frosted with the frosting should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
More whipped buttercream frosting recipes!
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Whipped Brown Sugar Buttercream
Ingredients
- 7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ cups milk
- 1 ½ tablespoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups salted butter at cool room temperature1
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar packed
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. It will be the consistency of a thick paste.
- Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.
- Stir in vanilla.
- While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy on medium high, about 3 minutes.
- Then add the completely cooled milk mixture.
- Beat it for about 5 minutes on medium-high to high until it looks like whipped cream. If you can still taste the sugar granules, keep beating it until you can’t.
Video
Notes
- So, what is “cool room temperature”? A lot of people think that room temperature butter means that the butter is on the verge of melted or is partially melted. That’s too warm. Cool room temperature butter means that if you press it with your finger, your finger will leave an indentation in the butter, but the butter should still hold its shape and should still feel cool to the touch.
- Check out the tips and tricks section above the recipe for more helpful hints.
- Nutrition facts have been estimated.
Nutrition
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Published 7/21/14. Updated with new photos and hints on 5/8/18.
Reader Interactions
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Comments & Reviews
Willow says
Holy mother of sweet and creamy whipped to death frosting. THIS WAS GOOD. Used it with dark chocolate cupcakes and topped it off with some chocolate sprinkles. The dark chocolate paired amazingly with it because they aren’t too sweet so it complimented the frosting well!
Kate says
Thank you so much! I bet! That sounds so yummy! =) Thanks for coming back to comment!
Jazmin says
How long will this buttercream last? Can I make it on Wednesday and still use leftovers on Sunday?
Kate says
I would suggest using it within 2-3 days. Hope that helps!
Thaslim says
Can I use pan cake mix instead of all purpose flour?
Kate says
I wouldn’t recommend using pancake mix as it usually contains sugar, salt, and a leavening agent in addition to flour.
Laura says
Thank you for this recipe! I’ve done a lot of butter creams, this is by far the best one! I followed your directions to a tee, (except I used salted butter and omitted the salt- didn’t have any unsalted) and just about cried at how beautifully it turned out. FYI, I frosted a banana cake with it three days ago and have not refrigerated it at all and the frosting is as beautiful as the day I made it. And one of those days was a very humid warm Texas day. So in my experience, it does not HAVE to be refrigerated. Thanks again!
Kate says
Thank you!! I’m so glad you liked it! Banana cake sounds like the perfect match for this frosting. And thank you for the tip about not needing refrigeration. I appreciate you taking the time to come back and comment!
Charlene Clarke says
Can peanut butter be added to this recipe?
Kate says
I’ve never tried adding peanut butter to this frosting. I’ve used peanut butter in other frostings and found that it can vary quite a bit (different brands seemed to work better) in how well it incorporates, so it may require some experimentation. Good luck!
Jennifer says
This frosting is delicious. Hands down, best frosting I’ve ever made. However, I would like to point out MY mistakes. First, I made it the night before, cupcakes were to warm to frost, so I put it in the fridge, after reading other comments about not leaving it out more that a couple of hours. The next morning, after setting it out to come to room temp, it had separated, and no amount of whipping could save it. So, I dumped it and started a new batch. This time, I piped my cupcakes, and all was beautiful. BUT, my company wasn’t coming for several hours, so I put them back in the fridge. Thirty minutes before I was going to serve dessert, I set them out on the counter. They still looked great, but as everyone tried to eat them, it was apparent that the frosting was no longer “frosting” consistency. It was such a shame, because in its pristine glory, this frosting should be raved about! My suggestion…DO NOT put it in the fridge. I will most definitely make it again.
Kate says
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you taking the time to come back and leave a comment. Making mistakes in the kitchen is part of the process, and it is really helpful to hear about mistakes that other people have made. So thank you!!
Rachel says
Does this really not work if you place it in the fridge? I will be frosting cupcakes tonight and serving tomorrow. I don’t want the frosting to be ruined.
Kate says
As long as the frosting is mixed well to begin with, it should be ok. The frosting sets up some in the fridge, but I just take the frosted cake or cupcakes out a little before I plan to serve them to let them soften back up a bit.
Nan Wilson says
The cake I made for my father the left overs were put in the fridge. The icing set up hard like all the butter in them so just take them out at least a hour before and you should be good.
Kate says
Thanks!
pAULGUAD says
Fabulous, much better than my usual LOTS OF BUTTER RECIPE. tHANKS
Kate says
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for taking the time to come back and leave a comment!
Erika Crowley says
Hi,
I’m going to use this recipe fire my son’s birthday cake but he wants chocolate.
I wanted a frosting without powdered sugar and this looks too delicious not to try.
Can I add cocoa powder to make it chocolate or maybe sub cocoa for flour?
I don’t want to screw up a perfectly good frosting!
Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Erika
Kate says
Hi! Thanks! I think you may have better luck turning my original whipped buttercream frosting into a chocolate frosting. I’ve heard from people who have made the recipe and added a little cocoa powder to it with good luck.
Just as a side note – I don’t think you’ll want to sub more than 1 tablespoon of the flour for cocoa powder (at most) if you go that route. The flour thickens the milk, and if you sub too much of it, you’ll end up with loose frosting. I hope that helps, and happy birthday to your son!
Mimi says
I made this with almond milk, it worked great. This is a light, not to sweet frosting. I love, love love it. I would recommend this to anyone and am going to. Definitely gonna make again. A+.
Kate says
I’m so glad you liked it! Also, thank you for coming back to share that almond milk works well. That’s a question that several people have had, so it’s always helpful to hear from people who have successfully tried that.
Gabby says
I know this post is very old but I thought I’d chime in since I made this and substituted A LOT today and it worked.
I subbed the butter for Earth Balance Soy Free, the milk for Almond Milk, the brown sugar for Coconut Sugar, and the flour for Brown Rice Flour. Haha, I know that’s not much left to the recipe but it was good information on the ratios.
The butter had some real trouble breaking down and mixing with the sugar, it took twice as long as the recipe lists. But it eventually got fluffy. When I added the milk/flour mixture it was doing pretty good, but yet again needed to mix twice as long to get the right consistency.
I walked away for a minute to get a piping bag, and the frosting broke! I was freaking out! I went online and saw that it may have been getting to cold, so I grabbed a bowl of warm water and placed it under the stand mixer and it whipped right back together. I quickly put it in a piping bag and placed it on my cupcakes and they looked great!
It’s a very sweet frosting, but that’s exactly what the clients needed so it all worked out in the end. Hope my experience helps anyone trying this recipe and needing to sub a few things.
Kate says
Wow! I’m glad all of those substitutions worked out! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment! It’s always helpful to hear what sorts of subs work and which ones don’t.
Leah says
Is it ok to use unsalted butter rather than salted
Kate says
Yep! Just add 1/4 teaspoon salt to begin with and continue adding salt to taste.
Sharon Toji says
Now I’m going to ask one more question. I think I’ll try to use your brown sugar whipped frosting recipe but change it to salted caramel by maybe adding extra salt. What do you think? I saw a recipe elsewhere for flour type frosting where they actually made salted caramel separately and put it into the whipped frosting. I’m not sure what would work out best to make salted caramel. Someone else suggested putting the sugar right into the flour mixture so it wouldn’t be gritty. However, I think I trust your recipes a bit more, so if you have some advice on turning this recipe into salted caramel I would appreciate it.
Kate says
I have a salted caramel buttercream frosting recipe if you’re interested.
I would highly suggest using either a finishing salt like fleur de sel or a large-grained salt like Kosher salt. Using table salt makes the frosting overly salty. Also, if you do try adding the salted caramel in, I would recommend getting the thicker jarred caramel. The thinner caramel sauces would water the end frosting down.
I haven’t had any issues with the frosting coming out gritty. The brown sugar just melts into the frosting (so long as it’s fresh and not hard and lumpy). I would be nervous about putting it in with the flour because you really want the milk mixture to thicken up nicely, and I’m not sure how the brown sugar would affect that. I hope that helps!
kathleen Slavin says
I just tried your whipped buttercream frosting and just loved it. I can’t wait to try the brown sugar recipe but I’m not sure what kind of cake I should make. I know you were going to post a recipe for a cake but I am not sure how to find it since this original post was so long ago.
Kate says
Thank you! I’m so glad that you like it! I use it with my zucchini spice cake. It’s also good with regular spice cakes, apple cakes, pumpkin cake, and white cake.
Julie Hoover says
I made your white sugar version with almond milk and it came out great! I made this one with half whole milk & half whipping cream (because that’s what I had!). Oh and bourbon! Yum! The milk/flour mixture thickened up really fast! If I store leftovers in fridge for later will I need to re whip? Will that even work for this kind of frosting?
Kate says
I’m glad you liked it! The only time that I’ve ever had issues with separate and had to rewhip it was when I didn’t get it combined well enough to begin with. When I’ve stored cupcakes with piped frosting in the fridge, it’s stayed together well, and I haven’t had any issues.
V.M. says
Mine tuned out really griddy and the wrong color how could i have fixed that?
Kate says
It sounds like the problem was your sugar. Brown sugar basically melts into the butter when you beat them together. Even when I make a similar recipe with granulated sugar, it isn’t gritty. I’m going to assume that you didn’t sub another sugar like raw sugar or turbinado sugar. So, the only reason that it would be gritty is if your brown sugar was hard and wasn’t incorporated well enough into the butter. You could fix that by either softening hard brown sugar before you use it or by using fresh brown sugar.
As far as it being the wrong color, I really have no idea. You’d have to give me more info on that.
V.M. says
color was a lot like sand, although it tasted delicious! i think ill try it again and see if it works if i mix the butter and sugar more, thank you!
Kate says
Definitely! I’m not sure whether you’re using a hand or stand mixer, but if you really beat the butter and sugar together, it should come out better.
Michale says
I LOVE this recipe. It is light and easy on the palette, unlike most buttercreams. It also has a caramelly taste and could pair with practically anything! One Note: This recipe CAN be done by hand. Do NOT let the lack of an electric mixer stop you from creating this recipe; it is worth the extra 2-3 minutes’ worth of whipping ?
Michale says
I also forgot one thing; Normally I HATE whipped frostings but this one is deserving of five stars all the way home!
Kate says
Thank you!!
Kate says
Thank you!! I’m so glad to hear that you liked it! And thank you so much for the note about making it by hand! I’ve only ever used the stand mixer to make it, so I very much appreciate the info on that.
jamicia says
What does T mean?
Kate says
I use “T” for tablespoon.
Michelle L. McLauchlan says
in your recipe, is the T. for the flour and extract teaspoons or tablespoons?
Kate says
I use “T.” for tablespoons and “tsp.” for teaspoons.
Sheila says
Can I use almond flour instead of all purpose flour?
Thank you.
Great recipe!!
Kate says
Thank you!! I’m not sure how almond flour would work, but I have heard from people who have tried gluten free flour blends (like cup4cup). They’ve said that the gluten free flour worked just fine in it. Hope that helps! =)
Maggie says
Hi. I would like to frost my cupcakes before freezing them for later. Would your frosting freeze and thaw successfully? Thank you,
Kate says
I’m not sure! I have frozen cupcakes and cake, but I’ve never tried to freeze frosted cupcakes.
Maggie says
Thanks for responding. I’ll try it out and let you know.
Maggie says
Hi again. Tried freezing both the frosted cupcakes and some frosting on its own – both were successful. Thankyou for a really nice frosting recipe. It will stay in my recipe folder for future use
Kate says
Awesome! I’m glad they both came out well! Freezing frosted cupcakes seems like it would be a big time-saver. I’m really glad that you came back to let me know how it worked out! Thanks! =)
Jennifer says
Hello there, I made the frosting recipe and it seems a bit runny. What should I do
Kate says
You could try putting it in the fridge to see if that helps it set up, and then try whipping it again after that.
Jennifer M. says
Wow! I made your recipe exactly and it is amazing. My husband is the pickiest frosting eater ever and he loved it! How you described it as not too sweet is perfect. Cake recipes tend to be really sweet and having a fluffy, medium-sweet, but flavorful frosting is perfect to pair with. Thank you for a recipe I will use many times and refer to!
Kate says
I’m so glad that you both liked it!! I agree! I like a little contrast because super sweet cake and super sweet frosting tend to just taste bland and sugary to me. I always enjoy hearing that people are using and enjoying my recipes. Thanks for taking the time to come back and leave a comment! =)