Fresh Strawberry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

What makes this Fresh Strawberry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting stand out is the intense strawberry flavor that comes from using real, fresh strawberries. No shortcuts here. You start by cooking fresh strawberries down to a thick paste which I add to my silky-smooth vanilla buttercream. Let me tell you, it takes an already great frosting into flavor overdrive. Lightly tangy, fresh, silky smooth rich and perfect on pretty much any dessert!

Hey team! I’ve recently discovered a love of fresh strawberry desserts. That fresh flavor is unbeatable and it’s what makes this frosting so unbelievably flavorful! It’s rich, silky smooth and has that perfect balance of sweetness with a little tang that keeps it from being overly sweet. I love piping it onto my strawberry cupcakes but it’s also great for layer cakes or even slathering on chocolate brownies. It takes an already great dessert and makes it memorable. Like, can’t stop thinking about it memorable!

Like I said, the secret to that strong strawberry flavor is using fresh strawberries. It gives you a real, lightly tangy and strong berry flavor. No extracts, essences and certainly no expensive freeze-dried berries. The beauty is that you can even use frozen strawberries if strawberries aren’t in season. That way you can have summer fresh berry flavored frosting whenever you want! And that color is all natural! Although I’ll admit, I added a tiny little drop of pink food gel to give it a bit of a boost. I couldn’t help myself. Totally optional though.

In this recipe I’ve paired the strawberries with my delicious vanilla buttercream, which is silky smooth, not overly sweet but perfectly stable and pipeable. But here’s a little secret, this would also work well with my cream cheese frosting. You just add the cooled strawberry paste to your cream cheese frosting and you have a strawberry cheesecake frosting that will win flavor awards!

I love using this frosting on my Strawberry Vanilla Cupcakes. The cupcakes themselves have fresh strawberries too. They’re soft and fluffy and taste just as good as the frosting so when you pair them together it’s like a strawberry festival in your mouth!

It tastes amazing because it has REAL Strawberries!

The only way to pack as much strawberry flavor into this frosting is with fresh strawberries. I wanted to create a frosting that had the real deal. No extracts or artificial flavorings. Fresh strawberries ended up being the best choice because they’re easier to find and less expensive than using freeze dried strawberries. You can even use frozen strawberries if they’re not in season. Although you might need to add a couple extra minutes to your cooking time because of the liquid that comes out of frozen strawberries.

I also tested the recipe by just adding strawberries to a blender and adding it to the frosting without cooking it down. But strawberries hold a lot of liquid and it made the frosting split and too soft. It wasn’t pipeable. Cooking the strawberries down to a paste intensifies the flavor, gives you a gorgeous natural color and made the frosting smooth, rich, flavorful and easy to work with.

To prep your strawberries – add them to a colander and wash them under running water. Let the excess water drip off and then add them to a large tray lined with paper towels. Give them a shake to dry them off. Cut the ends off and then slice them in half.

Ingredients Needed

• Butter – I use unsalted butter and add a little salt for balance of flavor, but if you use salted butter, just leave the salt out of your frosting. More importantly though, make sure your butter is properly softened. I’ve got a quick guide on how to soften butter the blog if you need it.
• Salt – I use fine salt.
• Vanilla extract – I use pure vanilla extract for my frostings, but you can also use vanilla bean paste for a speckled look.
• Powdered sugar – also known as icing sugar. I use the soft icing sugar which has corn starch in it, but the one without will work too. Whichever you use, make sure you run it through a sieve to get rid of any lumps. Especially if it’s a cold day. Those lumps don’t always dissolve in your butter when you beat it.

How to properly soften your butter

Properly softened butter is the secret to fluffy, stable frosting. I like to cut it into cubes and let it soften naturally at room temperature. It’s ready when it hits 18C / 65F on a thermometer, but you can also check by touch! Press a finger into it, and if it’s soft, cool, and has a bit of resistance, it’s good to go. If it’s too soft or greasy, your buttercream can turn out overly soft, greasy, or even split.

Making the strawberry paste

• Begin by washing and drying your strawberries. You want to cut the tops off and then slice them in half.

TIP: You can use frozen strawberries; it will just take longer to cook them down to a paste.

• Pop them into a food blender and pulse until they turn to liquid. Scrape the bowl down at least once to make sure there aren’t any lumps.
• Pour into a large non stick saucepan and cook on medium heat.

• Continue stirring until it cooks down to a thick paste that can coat your spatula. About the consistency of jam.
• Transfer the hot mixture to a flat bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it cool completely at room temperature. Don’t put it in the fridge to cool unless you’re making it ahead of time.

TIP: Make sure your strawberry paste is room temperature before adding to the frosting, as cold strawberry paste will cause your frosting to seize when the cold paste hits the room temperature butter.

Making your fluffy buttercream

• Add the softened butter to a large mixing bowl and use an electric hand mixer to beat on medium high speed for 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. You can also use a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Make sure you scrape the bowl down at the halfway point to ensure everything is mixing properly.
• Run the sugar through a sieve into the bowl with the butter. Add the vanilla extract and beat on low speed to begin with until the sugar has completely mixed in. Then turn the speed up to medium high again and beat for 5 minutes.

• Add the room temperature strawberry paste and beat on medium high for a couple minutes until well combined. Make sure you give the bowl a scrape halfway through to ensure everything beat evenly.

TIP: it’s super important that your butter is softened properly otherwise it can cause your buttercream to be too stiff or overly soft and greasy.

Want to do a deep dive on buttercream frosting?

I have an in depth post on all my tips and tricks to making amazing buttercream at home including troubleshooting tips for things that might go wrong and how to fix them. You can read all about it on my Vanilla Buttercream recipe post!

How to use this frosting

• Use it to frost a chocolate or vanilla cake – goes well with both!
• Goes really well on my Strawberry Cupcakes
• Can be used to fill cookie sandwiches. Use any cookie you like. I like my Chocolate Chip Cookies.
• Can be used to frost Chocolate Brownies

Why did my frosting split?

This can happen for a couple reason. Usualy, adding a little extra powdered sugar or chilling the frosting for 20 minutes and re-whipping will fix this problem.

• Too much moisture in strawberries or paste was too warm – you might not have cooked the paste down enough and the excess moisture caused your frosting to split. Add a little extra powdered sugar to help stiffen the frosting up. This will result in a sweeter frosting.
• Butter over softened – if your butter is too soft your frosting can split when you add the strawberries. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes and then whip again on medium high speed.
• Too warm a day – If your environment is too warm, your butter will over soften and this can cause it to split. Pop the frosting in the fridge for 20-30 minutes then re-whip until smooth.

What is this recipe in grams and not cups?

The short answer is accuracy! It is far easier, more accurate and you get more consistency results when you measure ingredients by weight, especially in dessert and bread baking! I wrote all about this in my post about using digital kitchen scales!

Tried this recipe and loved it? Awesome! Drop me a comment below and tell me about it! Can’t wait to hear how it turned out for you! You can also keep up to date with me during the week by joining me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!