I originally published this recipe in 2017 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and a few more success tips. Let’s talk about how to make naturally flavored, naturally pink strawberry buttercream frosting. Have you ever tried making frosting with fresh strawberries? I have, and the results were disastrous. I chopped up the strawberries, even blotted the moisture a little bit, pureed them, and then added it to a vanilla frosting. The buttercream instantly curdled as a result of the excess moisture—yuck! Same thing happened with strawberry jam, which also made the frosting too sweet. Instead of relying on artificial strawberry flavor, I tried a trick I learned while writing my cookbook Sally’s Candy Addiction. Use freeze-dried strawberry powder!
Strawberry Buttercream Frosting (6 Ingredients)
Grind the freeze-dried strawberries into powder using a food processor or blender:
Success Tip for Super-Smooth Strawberry Buttercream:
If you prefer a smoother strawberry buttercream, with none of the teeny-tiny seeds, you can sift out the seeds and larger pieces of the ground freeze-dried strawberries with a fine mesh sieve, and use just the super-fine strawberry dust. If I have an extra minute, I usually do this. The rest of the recipe is similar to making regular vanilla buttercream or chocolate buttercream. You’ll need a handheld or stand mixer.
Where Can I Buy Freeze-Dried Strawberries?
What Tastes Best With Strawberry Buttercream?
I also halve the recipe and use it to fill these chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes. Do not use “dried strawberries,” which are chewy like raisins or dried apricots. They have a gummy texture and don’t grind into a powder. You need freeze-dried strawberries, which have all of the moisture removed. They’re the same strawberries we use in strawberry and cream cookies.
Vanilla Cupcakes Pistachio Cupcakes Confetti Sprinkle Cupcakes Chocolate Cupcakes Strawberry Cupcakes Peanut Butter Cupcakes (for a PB&J flavor combo!) Piñata Cupcakes Vanilla 6-Inch Cake Fruit Pizza Lemon Cupcakes (pictured below)
Strawberry Frosting Variations
If you love strawberry buttercream frosting, you’ll also love these delicious variations!
Strawberry cream cheese frosting from this strawberry cake White chocolate strawberry buttercream from these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes Nutella-strawberry swirl buttercream from my Valentine’s Day cupcakes
