This is my daughter’s favorite frosting. She happily gobbles it up on cupcakes.
Vanilla Honey Buttercream Frosting
Vanilla Honey Buttercream Frosting
Yield 1 1/2 cups
Rich and sweet, a little goes a long way slathered on your favorite cake. This delicious, naturally sweetened, Vanilla Honey Buttercream Frosting, made with real food ingredients, is so easy to make, it only takes a few minutes.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup grass-fed butter, softened or room temperature
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp raw honey (I use local raw clover creamed)
- 2 tsp gluten-free organic vanilla extract
Instructions
- Fit standing mixer with the flat beater (if you don't have a standing mixer, you could use a hand mixer or food processor instead) and mixing bowl.
- Add butter, honey and vanilla to the bowl and mix on low speed until the butter starts to soften. Increase speed and whip until creamed and it begins to have a lighter white color, about 1 minute. Stop mixer and scrape down frosting with a spatula.
Notes
Use a lighter color honey (not wildflower honey) to ensure the flavor stays mild and not bold in flavor.
Storage: If storing for later, make sure to take it out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before frosting so it's not so hard and will spread easier.
Serving Suggestions: Use this to frost your favorite cookies or cakes like chocolate cake, carrot cake, vanilla cake, etc.
Equipment: Standing Mixer & Bowl or Hand Mixer, Spatula
Are you on Pinterest? I pin lots of yummy real food recipes + more there. I have a board just for Gluten Free Treats too. Come follow along.
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This frosting looks perfect! I can’t wait to try it the next time I bake. 😉
Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you 🙂 Hope you enjoy it!
How many cupcakes will this recipe (1.5 cups) frost? And I noticed your strawberry icing requires arrowroot powder. Do you recommend putting some in this too?
The estimated amount for frosting cupcakes is about 1 cup for 12 cupcakes. It takes about 2 1/2 to 4 cups of frosting to generously frost a 2 layer 9″ cake. I hope that helps. I never have in this recipe, but I’m sure you could. When using powdered sugar, most have cornstarch or tapioca flour in them, so the arrowroot acts in the same way as the others would in powdered sugar.
Just made this, but it didn’t get as stiff as it looks like yours’ did (from the picture of it in the bowl). Any suggestions?
I’m sorry it did not turn out for you. The frosting should not be stiff, it’s soft. I use a raw creamed clover honey, which tends to be a thicker honey and I don’t soften the pasture butter first. Did you use a standing mixer? It’s hard to say, temperature can be the culprit sometimes, and so can equipment and/or ingredients. I’ve never had a problem with this frosting and have been making it for many years.
add more powdered sugar
yes, mine did not stiffen up either. hmmm
It should not be stiff, it should be a soft frosting.
Thanks for this – I made a version without the vanilla, replacing it instead with almond essence and a tiny bit of brandy – voila, a cane-sugar free version of my Gran’s brandy butter icing for my honey sweetened Christmas cake – yum!
Yum! That sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I realize I’m late to the party. But, this frosting is wonderful. I used Pasture Butter and regular raw honey, added 2 tablespoons of cocoa and it was amazing. Soft, creamy and delicious. Frosted a birthday cake with it and chilled the whole thing for about an hour. Perfect!
Yum! I’m so happy you enjoyed it! Makes me want to go bake a cake so I can make the frosting 🙂 Thanks for sharing. Take care.
I just made this and it’s absolutely wonderful! I had made wheat free, corn free, refined sugar-free orange cream cupcakes. So I added a 1/4 tsp of orange oil to it. Absolutely wonderful!! Thank you!
Oh I bet they were so yummy! Such a good flavor combo. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I made this today, but added 1/2 cup confectioners sugar to make it a little stiffer. Then I used it to frost a pumpkin spice cake. It was amazing! My husband immediately asked for a second piece of cake the moment he finished eating the first. This was BY FAR the best frosting I’ve ever made. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Thank you so much for sharing! I bet the confectioners sugar made it extra yummy too. I love pumpkin spice cake, so glad you enjoyed it.
I made this today and WOW! It is so nice. The first batch didn’t make the cake. Between my 3 girls and myself having a little taste it was nearly all gone. My hand mixer has blown up so I used a mini processor that came with my stick blender and it did a good job. Dying to try this recipe again!
Thanks so much for sharing this with me! I love that the 4 of you enjoyed it. I hope you get to make it again soon. I know what you mean, we always enjoy it before it make it to the cake or cupcakes 😉 Take care and thanks again so much for leaving a comment.
I’m thinking of adding some peanut butter to this recipe? Do you think that could work and if so how much?
Sounds yummy! I bet that would be delicious, but I’ve never used peanut butter in the recipe, so I’m not sure.
Love this recipe! I made it to cover my son’s birthday cake for his 1st birthday. Turned out great! The only thing I would say to those going to make it, be sure your butter is cold, straight from the fridge. I made two batches, one with cold butter and one with a little softened butter, and the cold butter produced a much more smooth, creamy, non-curdled frosting. Thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks so much for sharing that! So happy to hear and Happy Birthday to your little one. Great feedback on the butter.
Very good! I made some pumpkin muffins using maple syrup for to sweeten and they didn’t have much flavor. Rather than start over and add more spices I made this frosting and it is very good on the muffins. Thanks!
Great to hear! Thanks!
Hi can I replace the honey with maple syrup.
Many thanks
You could try that Antoinette, it won’t give it the exact same consistency as a thicker honey though. Another option could be using maple sugar, grinding it up first in a blender or food processor to make it powdered consistency. That would work for sure. Hope that helps!
Honey and butter are a natural combination. I bet it was the frosting used in the Middle ages when “hony” was the main sweet. I am surprised that not many cookbooks mention this simple homemade treat. I guess the history of merchandising is that you really “should” give up the honey and use “pure” white sugar, shouldn’t you? (evil eye brow raise)
I like the taste of honey more. I’m thinking of making some kind of strawberry angel food cake with honey-butter frosting. An egg white based sponge cake or even cupcake, with strawberries mashed and sweetened, frosted with honey-butter frosting. Yum.
I thought that I was compromising by using this recipe. I was out of cream cheese to make my standard frosting, but I didn’t want to run to the store. The frosting was to be used for cinnamon rolls. The frosting is perfect! Oh, my! No comprise here!
I’m so happy to hear that Kathy! I love cream cheese frosting too, so I know you what you mean. This one is pretty delicious too 🙂 Thanks for letting me know!
When I make this, should I expect it to be a little lumpy from the cold butter? Or does it really all smooth out fairly well? I’ve made frosting with softened butter, so this is a new way for me to try by starting with the butter being cold.
Hi Kris, the recipe does not use cold butter, it should be room temperature or softened. 🙂
How does this frosting hold up to heat? I’m looking for something for a 2 year old’s outdoor birthday party. Also, could I substitute something dairy-free for the butter? Coconut oil?
Hi Monique 🙂 I’ve been getting a lot of traffic on this (older) recipe – I need to update the photos, sorry about the quality of them – BUT this recipe is still oh so good and a family favorite. It’s not going to hold up to a lot of heat because it’s butter. That being said, it can be left at room temperature since there’s nothing in it like cream cheese which would need refrigeration. It wouldn’t “melt” unless it was left in extreme heat, just think about butter and how long it would take to melt in the sun and the frosting will be similar. I hope that helps! 🙂 How fun for the 2 year old’s birthday, I hope it’s a lovely one. Both of my kids have enjoyed this frosting at their young birthdays. For dairy-free – coconut oil would really change the flavor and I wouldn’t recommend that. You could try using a quality brand of palm shortening which is usually a blend of organic palm oil and coconut oil, that would work the best.