Fresh Raspberry Frosting
Much like my strawberry frosting, this raspberry buttercream is bursting with fresh flavor and gorgeous color (no food coloring needed!). It’s the perfect blend of sweet and tart, and it pipes beautifully, similar to classic buttercream frosting. You’ll love it as a macaron filling or paired with my dark chocolate cupcakes for a stunning contrast of colors and flavors. Today’s recipe starts on the stove with a homemade fresh raspberry sauce. We’ll cook the berries down to reduce their water content and intensify their flavor before straining, cooling, and blending them into buttercream. This raspberry frosting isn’t complicated to make, but it does require some patience during the cooling process–so make sure to set aside some time for that!
Why use my raspberry buttercream recipe:
Totally natural–no food coloring or artificial flavor needed! Not too sweet or too tart. Pipes beautifully (just look at those rosettes!). Easily doubles if needed.
What You Need
Just 6 ingredients come together to make this fresh raspberry frosting. Most importantly, you will need:
Raspberries. I personally prefer to use fresh raspberries for the best results (easier to sample the flavor of the berries and you don’t have to cook off as much excess liquid). I do provide instructions for using frozen raspberries below, if you’d like to go that route. Lemon juice. Just a splash of lemon juice brings out the tartness of the berries and balances the sweetness of this raspberry frosting. Sugar. A bit of granulated sugar helps to macerate the berries to create a juicy sauce, and then we’ll use powdered sugar to create the buttercream itself. Butter. Use unsalted butter and make sure it is softened before starting. If you only have salted butter on hand, you can use that and just omit the salt.
I do NOT use vanilla extract in my raspberry buttercream because I found it bullied the fresh raspberry flavor a bit too much for my liking. SAM’S TIP: If your frosting is too thick after adding your sauce, you can always add a splash of milk or heavy cream to thin it out. Conversely, if your frosting is too thin, a bit more powdered sugar should thicken it up. Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Raspberry Frosting
This recipe starts on the stovetop where we’re making something like a raspberry jam. We’ll cook the berries and strain them, but if you like some texture feel free to add a few more seeds back in.
Cook the Berries
Make the Buttercream
SAM’S TIP: Measure the strained raspberry sauce to make sure you have reduced it enough, otherwise your raspberry frosting will be too runny to pipe or spread onto your cake. I can’t wait to hear how you use this raspberry buttercream! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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