This beautiful Strawberry Buttercream Frosting is naturally colored and filled with real strawberries. This easy frosting is loaded with flavor and it comes together in minutes. The perfect topping for cake, cupcakes, brownies, and more!
Strawberry Buttercream Frosting is what spring and summer dreams are made of. But, good news – you can make this frosting year round. You’ll want to put it on anything and everything.
This Strawberry Buttercream became a regular in our dessert rotation six years ago when we used it on our Strawberry Cupcakes.
This is the perfect way to make a pretty pink frosting without any food coloring. Yep, you read that right – no food coloring. Real strawberries bring the beautiful pink color to our frosting. And every bite is bursting with the flavor of sweet fresh strawberries.
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Ingredients needed
- Unsalted butter
- Powdered sugar
- Freeze dried strawberries
- Vanilla
- Strawberry jam
- Milk OR fresh strawberry puree (more on this below)
Recipe overview
Start by grinding the freeze dried strawberries into powder. Pour it through a fine mesh sieve and discard the seeds. You will be left with a fine pinkish/red powder that will add tons of strawberry flavor to the frosting.
Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter until smooth, Add powdered sugar and beat until combined.
Add the freeze dried strawberry powder, jam, vanilla, and milk/strawberry puree.
Beat until smooth and combined.
Ingredient spotlight: freeze dried strawberries
Freeze dried strawberries are strawberries that have low water content and are dried out and crispy. They can be found on the dried fruit aisle (I get mine at Target or Whole Foods). Note: they are not dried strawberries which are soft and chewy (like a raisin).
Because they are dry they allow us to add a deep, more intense strawberry flavor without adding too much moisture which could make the frosting thin and runny.
Pulse the freeze dried strawberries in a food processor or blender until ground into a fine powder.
Can you use fresh strawberries?
Yes! I love making this recipe with fresh, pureed strawberries. Just pop 5-10 strawberries in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. You’ll need 2-3 tablespoons of strawberry puree and you’ll use it in place of the milk to thin out the frosting.
Make sure your strawberries are juicy and sweet otherwise they won’t add much flavor.
What to put strawberry frosting on?
More frosting recipes
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Recipe
Strawberry Buttercream
Ingredients
- ¾ cup freeze dried strawberries
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted if lumpy, plus more if needed
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 generous tablespoon strawberry jam
- 2 tablespoons milk OR 5-8 fresh strawberries*, plus more if needed
Instructions
- In a small food processor, blend freeze dried strawberries until they turn into powder. Pour the powder into a fine mesh sieve, discarding the solids and seeds, keeping the fine powder that came through the sieve. Set the powder aside, you should have a scant ¼ cup.
- With a hand mixer, or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl and the beater as necessary. Add the powdered sugar, ½ a cup at a time, beating until combined.
- Add freeze dried strawberry powder, vanilla extract, jam, and either 2 tablespoons of milk OR 2 tablespoons strawberry puree. Beat on medium speed until fully combined, being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl and beater as needed. If necessary, adjust the consistency by adding more powdered sugar to thicken, or more milk or strawberry puree to thin it out.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!
Dannii
What a beautiful colour that buttercream is. I would be so tempted to just eat it all out of the bowl.
Emily
Omg I wish I could reach into my screen and grab this, it looks to die for!
Sandi
I want to grab a big spoonful and just eat the frosting :-).
Lisa Bryan
You can’t go wrong with a good buttercream, but I’m LOVING the addition of fresh strawberries in this recipe. So perfect for spring!
Joyce
Holy moly I want to eat this like ice cream! haha! 😀 I totally am digging that there’s fresh strawberries and jam as well! Crazy flavour! 😀
Lauren
It’s not ice cream it’s buttercream frosting
Neha
This strawberry buttercream looks luxuriously rich, smooth, creamy and flavorful. Thanks for this amazing recipe!
Monique
OMG this frosting is so delicious and fresh!! I used it to fill French macarons and they are amazing!
Celebrating Sweets
Yay! It’s one of my favorite frostings. Great idea to put it in a macaron. Thanks for stopping by!
Pamela Willis
Hello! I was wondering if you could use butter flavoring instead of the soft butter? I have made my cupcakes, but was wondering, because I use the Wilton butter flavoring in my buttercream icing recipe.
Thank you!!
Celebrating Sweets
Sorry for the late reply. You can add butter flavoring, but you will still need actual butter to make the frosting.
Thomas Cosgrove
This is a great easy recipe. I added strawberry preserves and didn’t puree them very long and got nice pieces of strawberry in my frosting. I than topped my cheesecake making my first cheesecake with strawberries and frosting instead of whipped cream. Omg it is so good. I’m creating a frosted cheesecake line. List of coming attractions frosted with: Blueberry, Strawberry, Raspberry, Lemon, Peach, and any other flavor!
Elizabeth Allemong
This recipe is divine! And so easy to make. It tastes like strawberry ice cream at room temp. Love it! I used this buttercream to frost a chocolate cake. Thank you!
Celebrating Sweets
I’m glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks for stopping by.
Joyce
Worst recipe ever Way too Sweet! Will Never make it again!