Bailey's Buttercream Frosting

Want to add a touch of boozy goodness to your cakes and bakes? Then this Bailey’s buttercream frosting is perfect!

This creamy frosting is an American style buttercream. It's super easy to whip up and ready in less than 15mins.

Jump to:

• ✏️ Recipe creation
• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪 Equipment
• 📖 Method
• 🍱 Storage
• 💭 Top tips
• ❔ FAQs
• ♻️ Variations
• 🧁 Frosting uses
• 🍪 Other goodies
• 📋 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

✏️ Recipe creation

I first made this Bailey's frosting for my easy Bailey’s cupcakes. It was so tasty, I wanted to be able to add it to other goodies.

It's great for topping treats for St Patrick’s Day celebrations. Personally, I love it on Guinness chocolate cupcakes or Guinness brownies!

Irish cream frosting also goes great on bakes such as coffee cupcakes or Baileys chocolate cupcakes.

This recipe is based on my classic vanilla American buttercream frosting. The heavy cream and/or milk is replaced with tasty Irish cream instead.

🥘 Ingredients

This frosting recipe calls for the following ingredients:

• Unsalted butter
• Icing sugar (powdered confectioners’ sugar)
• Vanilla extract
• Bailey’s Irish cream liqueur (Original)
• Salt (optional)

See the recipe card for quantities.

Ingredient substitutions

If you don’t have the actual brand of Bailey’s Irish cream, you can use another brand of Irish cream liqueur instead. You can also use different flavours of Bailey’s, such as the strawberries & cream variety.

Ingredient tips

• Room temperature ingredients mix together better than cold ones. Take your butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature before you start making your frosting. For me, this takes about 30mins to warm up.

• Using unsalted butter lets you control the amount of salt in your buttercream. I like mine to be low salt so I don’t add much, but you can add an optional ⅛ teaspoon or a pinch of salt to taste.

• I recommend sieving your powdered sugar (a.k.a icing sugar or confectioners’ sugar) for a smooth frosting.

• To measure your ingredients, it’s best to use weights rather than cups for better accuracy.

• I prefer using vanilla extract to vanilla essence. As it’s less processed, it has a purer vanilla flavour.

🔪 Equipment

I use the following equipment for this recipe:

• Electric hand mixer or stand mixer (or whisk / fork)
• Medium mixing bowl
• Rubber spatula or wooden spoon
• Weighing scales
• Measuring spoons

Equipment alternatives

I usually use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer for this recipe because it’s nice and easy. You can instead use a whisk, spatula or fork to make your frosting. This might take some elbow grease!

Equipment tips

• I like using digital scales for weighing my ingredients as it's easy and accurate. I quite like KitchenAid or Salter scales.

• It’s best to use actual measuring spoons. Cutlery teaspoons and tablespoons aren’t actually the correct volume, which I never knew before. I’d also recommend levelling off any heaped scoops for a more accurate measurement.

• When using a stand mixer, I like to use the paddle attachment with a low speed to remove air bubbles and reduce the chance of overmixing.

• It’s a good idea to scrape down the sides and bottom of the stand mixer bowl every so often so you get an even mixture.

📖 Method

Beat the butter for several minutes until pale and fluffy.

Next, sieve in half of your powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Repeat with the other half of your powdered sugar and add in the Bailey’s, vanilla and salt (if using).

Spread your frosting onto cupcakes, cakes, brownies, cheesecakes and more!

🍱 Storage

Your Baileys buttercream should last up to 4 days stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

You can also freeze your frosting for up to 3 months in an airtight container. It’s best to label your frozen frosting with what it is and when it was frozen so you don’t forget about them.

Defrost your buttercream and re-beat it before use.

💭 Top tips

• For creamy frosting, beat your butter until it’s pale, light and fluffy before adding your other ingredients. This could take several minutes with an electric mixer and longer by hand.

• If you’re using an electric mixer, you can sometimes get a cloud of powdered sugar kicked up into the air. To stop this, stir your sieved powdered sugar into the butter with a wooden spoon or spatula briefly before using the electric mixer again. Though if you want to breathe tasty sugar air, I won’t judge!

• If your frosting is too thick to pipe, then you can add more Bailey’s to thin the consistency of the frosting.

• If your 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 you have any leftover frosting, you can use it for cake pops and cakesicles!

❔ FAQs

Troubleshooting

If you’ve got any specific questions on making Baileys buttercream frosting, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try my best to help out!

Alternatively, you can get in touch via my Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest – I’d love to hear from you!

♻️ Variations

Flavour options

I love using Baileys Irish cream original liqueur, but they have a whole bunch of other tasty flavours to choose from.

You can also swap the type of liqueur you use in your frosting, for example for another type of cream liqueur.

I like the vanilla and Baileys flavour combo in this frosting, but you can also give them a chocolate twist. Try adding 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder to your frosting.

Vegan option

To make vegan Bailey’s frosting, you can swap the butter for a firm dairy-free butter (baking block). You must use the solid kind rather than a liquid or soft variety.

Original Bailey’s Irish cream is not vegan. However, they have dairy-free (vegan) varieties, such as a delicious Bailey’s almande flavour that you can use instead.

If you’re baking for vegans, be sure to then use your vegan frosting on a vegan cupcake, cake or cookie!

🧁 Frosting uses

You can use this Baileys buttercream recipe to frost your cupcakes, cakes, cookies or brownies. Be sure to only frost your goodies once they’ve cooled fully or your frosting will melt off them.

Frost your baked goods with this homemade buttercream by spreading it on generously with an offset spatula or knife.

Alternatively, you can pipe your buttercream using a piping bag and a piping nozzle of your choice. When I frost cakes and cupcakes, I usually use the nozzles from this large piping tips set.

Amounts

This recipe makes enough to frost roughly 10 cupcakes (regular size). Make sure you’re using cool cupcakes not ones fresh from the oven.

To frost a cake fully (outside coating and between layers), you’ll need to double this recipe (scale up by x2) for a 3-layer round 6-inch cake. For a 3-layer round 8-inch cake, triple this recipe (i.e. scale up by x3).

Depending on how sweet you like your traybakes, you’ll only need half the amount of this frosting recipe for an 8-inch square sized traybake. Spread a thick layer across your cooled traybake before cutting it into slices.

Great goodies to frost

Bailey’s frosting would go great on the following:

• Bailey’s Oreo brownies
• Triple chocolate brownies
• Gluten-free moist chocolate cupcakes
• Victoria sponge cake

Toppings

There’s a lot of great options for toppings on your Bailey’s Irish cream frosting. I usually like to use melted chocolate and drizzle this on top of my frosted treats.

You can also dust over cocoa powder or icing sugar. Alternatively, add fun and colourful sprinkles or sweet chocolate chips!

Drizzling Bailey’s ganache on top of your frosting is also a great idea. Add 1-2 tablespoons of Baileys to chocolate ganache to thin it for drizzling and add great flavour.

🍪 Other goodies

Looking for some other goodies to make?

Love Baileys Irish cream? Check out some of my favourite Bailey’s dessert recipes - Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake, Bailey’s Oreo brownies, Bailey's red velvet swirl brownies or Bailey’s cupcakes.

If you’re a fan of boozy bakes, then check out my recipes for spiced orange rum brownie cookies, Tequila Rose GF white chocolate cake or salted rum dulce de leche sauce.

For more great cakes and cupcakes, why not check out my orange chocolate cake or funfetti vanilla cupcakes.

For other great frosting ideas, take a look at my matcha buttercream or white chocolate lemon no-cream ganache recipes.

Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!

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