This easy blue frosting is a creamy vanilla-flavoured American buttercream and can be made in any cute shade of blue! Made using blue food colouring, it's only 5 ingredients and ready in less than 15 minutes.
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✏️ Why you'll love this recipe
I wanted to make an easy homemade blue buttercream frosting to use on any sweet treat, from frosting cupcakes, cakes and brownies to filling macarons and cookies.
This blue buttercream icing is based on my simple vanilla frosting and is great for piping, decorations and making adorable buttercream flowers.
It's a light and fluffy American-style buttercream, and you can choose any blue shade by changing how much blue food colouring you add. See my section on how to get the perfect blue shade below.
This simple blue butter icing is perfect for birthday cakes and celebration cakes. Turn any dessert into a blue dream for blue-themed parties and events like boy baby showers, kids' parties, christenings, Father's Day and more!
🥘 Ingredients
This homemade blue frosting recipe calls for the following ingredients:
- Unsalted butter: room temperature for a softened butter that's easier to beat.
- Powdered icing sugar: sieve your confectioners' sugar for a smooth frosting.
- Vanilla extract: use extract or paste for the best taste.
- Milk: full-fat or semi-skimmed milk.
- Salt (optional)
- Blue food colouring: use a gel or paste to prevent adding too much moisture.
See the recipe card for quantities.
Top tip: For accuracy, it's best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.
♻️ Substitutions / Variations
Ingredient substitutions
You can use whole, semi-skimmed or non-dairy milk for your blue buttercream. This gives it a thinner, creamier consistency, so only add as much as needed, 1 tablespoon at a time.
For a creamier blue icing, swap the milk for heavy cream (e.g. double cream).
Food colouring types
You can use any type of blue food colouring for your frosting, but a concentrated gel, powder or paste will add less moisture than the cheaper liquid food colourings.
This gives a better consistency and makes your blue buttercream less likely to split.
🩵 How to get specific shades of blue frosting
You can buy your blue food colouring in specific shades of blue, e.g. baby blue food colouring or navy blue food colouring. I recommend the blue collection by Color Mill, they're great quality, and they have many shades from pastel and tiffany blue to navy and teal.
Alternatively, check out the tips below for getting the perfect blue for your buttercream.
Tip: your colouring develops stronger over time, so stop just a little before you get the intensity you want.
Baby blue buttercream
To make a baby blue frosting (i.e. light, sky or pastel blue), add the blue food colouring to your frosting one drop at a time. For the pale blue shade, you only need a very small amount.
If you add too much blue, you can lighten the colour with a drop or two of white food colouring. This also helps if your blue is looking a little green as a result of the yellow-ish colour of butter.
Tiffany blue buttercream
To make tiffany blue frosting (a bright pale blue colour / light teal), add your blue food colouring one or two drops at a time. As buttercream is slightly yellow, this might be enough to tint your buttercream tiffany blue, but if not, you can add one drop of yellow to give that light teal shade.
Royal blue buttercream
To make royal blue frosting (a bright blue colour), you can add your blue food colouring several drops at a time as this is a strong colour.
Navy buttercream
To make navy coloured frosting (also called dark blue or midnight blue), add several drops of blue food colouring and a single drop of black food colouring.
Dusty blue buttercream
To make dusty blue coloured frosting (also called dusky blue) coloured frosting, add a few drops of blue food colouring. Plus, add a drop of grey food colouring to wash out the hue to that dusty steel blue shade.
Instead of grey, you can use a drop of black and white.
📖 Method
Step 1: Beat the butter (either by hand, using an electric mixer or stand mixer) until pale, light and fluffy. This could take several minutes.
Step 2: Sieve half of the powdered icing sugar into the butter and beat until combined.
Step 3: Repeat this with the remaining half of the powdered icing sugar.
Step 4: Add in the vanilla extract, milk and salt (if using), mixing until just smooth.
Steps 5 - 6: Mix in a few drops of blue food colouring at a time until you reach the desired shade and enjoy!
🎥 Recipe video
Check out the recipe video below for how to make the best blue buttercream frosting!
💭 Top tips
- For creamy blue frosting, beat your butter until it's pale, light and fluffy first. This could take several minutes with an electric mixer.
- This recipe makes enough blue vanilla buttercream to frost 12-15 cupcakes or a single-layer 8-inch round cake. Scale up by ½ to frost a 2-layer 8-inch round cake.
- Food colouring develops stronger over time, so stop adding your blue colouring a few shades before you reach the intensity you want.
❔ Recipe FAQs
Your blue buttercream should last for up to 4 days stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
Yes! You can freeze your blue buttercream in an airtight container. Defrost it and re-beat before use.
If your blue frosting is too thin, you can try chilling it in the fridge for 10-20mins before use. Alternatively, you can beat in a few more tablespoons of butter to thicken it.
If your blue frosting is too thick to spread easily, then stir in some more milk or cream (½ tablespoon at a time) to thin the consistency.
Per the recipe, add blue food colouring a few drops at a time to your buttercream until you reach the desired shade.
See tips on getting the right shade above.
Yes, this is a gluten-free blue buttercream recipe.
To make your blue buttercream vegan, swap the milk for a dairy-free alternative milk and the butter for a dairy-free baking block. The vegan butter used must be the solid type, so your buttercream will be firm enough to use.
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🧁 Other goodies
Looking for some tasty desserts to frost with your easy blue buttercream? Why not give these baked goods a try:
- Funfetti sprinkles cupcakes - great for kids' parties!
- Lemon raspberry loaf cake
- Victoria sponge cake
If you love blue desserts, check out my blue cake pops - they're perfect for blue-themed celebrations like baby showers, birthdays, christenings and more!
You might also like these other tasty buttercream ideas:
- Pink buttercream frosting
- Simple vanilla american-style buttercream
- Bailey's buttercream
- Lemon buttercream
- Easy caramel buttercream - using store-bought caramel sauce!
For more tasty frostings, check out my full collection of the best frosting recipes.
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!
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📖 Recipe
Blue Buttercream
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Equipment
- Hand mixer optional
Ingredients
- 175 g (¾ cup) unsalted butter room temp.
- 375 g (3 cups) powdered icing sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2-3 teaspoon milk full or semi-skimmed
- ⅛ teaspoon salt optional
- Blue food colouring
Instructions
- Beat the butter (either by hand, using an electric mixer or stand mixer) until pale, light and fluffy. This could take several minutes.
- Sieve half of the icing sugar into the butter and beat until combined, then repeat this with the remaining half of the icing sugar.
- Add in the vanilla extract, milk and salt (if using) mixing until only just smooth.
- Stir in a few drops of blue food colouring at a time until you reach the desired shade.
Video
Notes
- This recipe makes enough frosting for roughly 12-15 cupcakes, or to frost a single-layer 8-inch cake.
- Scale up the recipe by ½ to fill and frost a 2-layer, 8-inch cake generously.
- Use softened room temperature butter for ease of mixing.
- For creamy frosting, beat your butter until it's pale, light and fluffy first. This could take several minutes with an electric mixer.
- Stop adding colouring a shade less intense than you'd like. Food colouring develops stronger over time.
- You can swap the milk for any type, including dairy-free alternatives, or heavy cream.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator, actual values may vary.
Kat says
Love this shade of blue!