Mint Buttercream Frosting: With only 5 ingredients, this mint frosting recipe is delicious on chocolate cake, and especially on these mint chocolate cupcakes!
Whether it’s for St. Patrick’s Day or you just love mint-flavored desserts, this buttercream will be absolutely delicious on your favorite baked goods. (It’s similar to the filling that we put in the mint chocolate brownies that are so delicious too!)
We’ve been known to put strawberry buttercream between sugar cookies, making cookie sandwiches, which would be a delicious way to use a little bit of this mint frosting recipe, in between 2 of these brownie mix cookies.
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⭐️ Why This Recipe Works
- It uses a few ingredients: Using only butter, powdered sugar, mint extract, milk, and green food coloring, you may have these ingredients on hand and will be topping your favorite dessert with this peppermint buttercream in no time!
- Type of Mint: Although we use peppermint extract for this recipe, if you prefer spearmint flavor, you can absolutely use spearmint extract instead.
- Ready in minutes: Making your own buttercream is easy and is ready in just a few minutes, so you can skip the store-bought frosting!
🧾 Ingredients Needed
I’ve highlighted a couple of ingredients with some relevant notes. Aside from this, the ingredients needed are pretty basic.
- Butter – We use salted butter for this recipe but you can use unsalted butter if you prefer. Make sure to use 2 sticks of softened butter, since one stick is typically 1/2 cup. (Check your butter to make sure a stick equals 1/2 cup.)
- Food Coloring – For a more vibrant green color, add extra food coloring. It is important to note that gel food coloring will give you a better color than liquid food coloring.
📖 Substitutions
If you’ve found that you’re out of some of the ingredients or need to substitute something, here are some suggestions that you may find helpful:
- Butter – if you don’t have butter, you can try using margarine instead, although we haven’t tested that yet for this recipe. Do know that the results may come out different when using something other than good quality butter.
- Food Coloring – if you don’t have the gel on hand and need to use liquid food coloring, it’s ok! We prefer the gel for best results but the liquid is ok in a pinch.
- Milk – we like using whole milk but we’ve also used heavy cream for our buttercream and that turns out wonderful too!
👩🏻🍳 Step-by-Step Instructions
In just a few simple steps, this creamy mint buttercream frosting will be ready for your sheetcake, cake layers, or your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe.
I suggest making this when you’re waiting for your baked goods to cool off.
*Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!*
STEP 1. Beat butter. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the softened butter until it is smooth and creamy. Ensure that there are no large clumps of butter remaining (Image 1).
STEP 2. Add powdered sugar. Add the powdered sugar and mix again until completely mixed and crumbly (Image 2).
STEP 3. Mix in the remaining ingredients. Use the hand mixer to whisk in the milk, peppermint extract, and food coloring. Mix the buttercream for about 2 minutes, or until smooth and creamy (Images 3 & 4).
Tip: If the frosting is still crumbly after 2 minutes, add another 1/2 tablespoon of milk and mix again to achieve the perfect consistency.
STEP 4. Ready to use. Frost your dessert with the delicious frosting or store the frosting in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap, until you are ready to use it. Enjoy!
💭 Recipe Pro Tips
- Allow to fully cool. When using this frosting, you want to make sure that whatever you use it on has cooled completely. Because there is so much butter in the frosting, it will become runny quickly if it is put on something hot or warm.
- Quality Butter. The key to delicious buttercream frosting is to use good quality butter.
- Amount needed. How much frosting you’ll need, will depend on what you’re using the frosting for. This recipe makes about 3 cups.
📋 Recipe FAQs
If you have leftover frosting or you want to make ahead, you can store this frosting for up to 2 weeks in the fridge as long as it is in an airtight container or tightly covered with plastic wrap. After that it will begin to harden significantly.
Frosting and buttercream can differ because of the ingredients. For instance, some frosting is made with cream cheese. Buttercream is mostly made of butter.
🍰 Cake and Cupcake Recipes You’ll Love
We love this buttercream on homemade chocolate cupcakes but we’ve also hand picked some of our favorite cake and cupcake recipes that you’ll love to serve this mint buttercream on:
Did you make this? I’d be so grateful if you left a review below to let me know what you thought! Then, the next time you need a quick and easy recipe, come back to Fantabulosity to browse all of my easy recipes!
📖 Recipe
Mint Buttercream
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- 1 Tablespoon whole milk Plus more if needed to achieve desired consistency.
- 1 teaspoon green food coloring gel
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, use an electric hand mixer to cream the butter until it i smooth and creamy. Ensure that there are no large clumps of butter remaining.
- Add the powdered sugar and mix again until homogenous and crumbly.
- Use the hand mixer to whisk in the milk, peppermint extract, and food coloring. Mix the buttercream for about 2 minutes, or until smooth and creamy.
- If the frosting is still crumbly after 2 minutes, add another 1/2 tablespoon of milk and mix again.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Andie says
Such a yummy recipe! I used it on chocolate cupcakes and YUM!
Abby says
Loved this buttercream recipe! Very easy to make and has just the right amount of mint flavor. It paired great with my chocolate cupcakes.
Natasha says
It’s awesome because it only has 5 ingredients and it’s easy to make! My family enjoyed our chocolate cupcakes with this mint buttercream. Thank you for another recipe added to my collection.