How to Make Icing (Easy Buttercream Frosting)

Take 1 cup (226g) of unsalted butter out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter until it's soft enough to dent with a finger - usually 30 to 60 minutes depending on your kitchen. It should yield like soft cream cheese. Cold butter won't cream, and melted butter ruins the texture entirely.

If you forgot to plan ahead, cut the butter into tablespoon-sized cubes and microwave at 50% power in 10-second bursts. Stop the moment it dents - even one extra burst can melt the edges.

The paddle attachment is the right tool for buttercream, not the whisk. A whisk pumps the mixture full of air bubbles that show up later as little holes when you smooth the frosting onto a cake. The paddle beats the butter creamy and silky without aerating it.

If you're using a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer, that works too - just keep the speed lower than you would for whipped cream. Buttercream is built on beating, not whipping.

Drop the soft butter into the mixer bowl and beat it on medium-high for about 5 full minutes. You want it visibly paler than when you started - the color goes from yellow-gold to almost ivory - and the texture should be light and fluffy like whipped frosting on its own.

This long whip is what makes the difference between a buttercream that's creamy and one that's greasy. Don't shortcut it. Set a timer if you have to.

Pour the full 16 oz (454g) package of powdered sugar into a fine-mesh strainer set over your mixer bowl. New packages almost always have small rocks of compressed sugar inside, and those rocks are what clog a piping tip and leave gritty bits in your finished icing.

Tap and shake the strainer until all the sugar is through. You'll usually catch a small pile of hard lumps in the mesh - throw those out, don't try to break them down with a spoon. The sifted sugar lands right on top of the creamed butter, ready to mix in.

Start the mixer on the lowest speed. It will look like nothing is happening for the first 30 seconds - the butter and sugar barely seem to touch. Keep going. The longer you stay on low, the creamier the final texture.

If you crank the speed up to incorporate it faster, you'll launch powdered sugar all over your kitchen and beat in air bubbles. Patience here pays off in the finished bowl.

With the mixer still running on low, pour in 1 tablespoon of heavy whipping cream. Then walk away. Don't stand there watching it - go check on something else for 60 seconds and let the mixer do its job.

The cream loosens the mixture and the buttercream comes together almost on its own. Standing over it and stopping the mixer every 10 seconds to peek actually slows things down.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, and a second tablespoon of heavy cream to the running mixer. The salt is non-negotiable - American buttercream tastes one-note-sweet without it. Salt is what makes the butter taste like butter and the vanilla taste like vanilla.

Mix on low for another minute or so until everything is smooth and uniform. Taste it. If it tastes too sweet, you didn't add enough salt - add another pinch.

Stop the mixer. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides and across the bottom of the bowl, then under the paddle. The bottom of the bowl traps a layer of stiffer, less-mixed butter that never makes it up to the paddle, and the top of the bowl holds a layer of looser sugar-and-vanilla mixture. Scraping pulls them together.

Add the third and final tablespoon of cream, then run the mixer on low for one more minute to bring the consistency together. The buttercream should look pale, smooth, and pipeable now.

This step is optional but it's what separates bakery-finish from amateur. Take a spatula and press the buttercream against the inside wall of the bowl, smearing it flat. Then fold it back over and press again. The motion is exactly like macaronage when you make French macarons - you're forcing out the air bubbles that got trapped during mixing.

Two or three passes around the bowl is enough. The buttercream changes from slightly bubbly to completely silky and mirror-smooth. If you're piping detail work or smoothing the frosting on a cake, this is the difference between a clean finish and a pocked-looking surface.

Fit a piping bag with a closed-star tip (John uses an Ateco 846, which is the standard size for cake borders and cupcake swirls). Stand the bag tip-down in a tall glass, fold the top down like a cuff, and fill it with buttercream using your spatula. Twist the top closed and squeeze the buttercream toward the tip.

For scallops, hold the bag at a 45-degree angle and pipe small back-and-forth waves. For rosettes, hold straight up and pipe in a tight spiral. For a smooth cake finish, skip the bag and spread the buttercream with an offset spatula instead.

If you're not using the buttercream right away, transfer it to an airtight container or a sealed piping bag. It keeps in the fridge for 3 to 4 weeks and in the freezer for 2 months. Bring it back to room temperature on the counter, then re-mix on low for a minute before piping.