Frosting

Consider every birthday cake, brownie, and cupcake covered (in this frosting, that is).

This simple and easy chocolate frosting is deeply chocolaty, fluffy, and swooshable.

French buttercream eschews meringue in favor of pâte à bombe, a combination of whipped egg yolks and sugar, for the ultimate lush frosting.

Llike a leveled-up pastry cream enriched with whipped butter, German buttercream is the ideal filling for cakes and pastries.

The easiest frosting around, this American-style buttercream can be adapted as you please.

First time frosting a cake? You’re gonna need a reliable frosting recipe. Learn why Swiss meringue buttercream is our top choice for cake decorating.

This red velvet cake recipe uses beets to give the cake its supernaturally silken texture and a deep crimson hue.

This classic frosting couldn’t be easier to make and is a must for finishing red velvet and carrot cakes (or a batch of cupcakes). Using vanilla bean paste gives it a pretty speckled look, but if you don’t have it on hand, pure vanilla extract will lend the same flavor.

With smooth chocolate pudding buttercream sandwiched between layers of moist devil’s food cake, the Brooklyn blackout cake is a dessert fit for chocolate lovers.

This is our all-purpose “go to” frosting. It’s great for piping into lush, swirling mountains of frostiness and just as good for spreading onto a cupcake like rolling hills of heaven. It make a lot, probably 4 cups’ worth, so you can halve the recipe if you are going to be spreading the frosting rather than piping it.

This rich, spiced buttercream is perfect for chocolate or gingerbread cake. The recipe yields enough buttercream to ice a 3-layer 9-inch round cake. For cupcakes, halve the recipe.

This rich buttercream is lightened and brightened with the addition of lemon curd. The recipe yields enough buttercream to ice a 3-layer 9-inch round cake. For cupcakes, halve the recipe.

Almost nothing makes me happier than buttercream at the perfect temperature, a small offset spatula, and a beautiful cake waiting to be frosted. There are different types of buttercreams, but I prefer the Italian-meringue version, perhaps because its consistency is very similar to thick oil paint, Thiebaud's medium in Display Cakes. If you're making one of the variations, ensure that whatever you're adding is at room temperature and incorporate it slowly.

When creaming butter for frostings, incorporating air and creating cells is not as important as simply creating a seamless texture. Many traditional buttercream frostings, such as the Swiss Meringue Buttercream on Page 455, incorporate softened butter into a meringue base, but this version is far simpler and quicker. You need only to beat the butter until creamy and then mix in confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder until smooth. This frosting will be grainier than a shiny, glossy meringue-based buttercream, but it is perfectly acceptable for a birthday cake or batch of cupcakes.

Of the three types of meringue, Swiss meringue is perhaps the easiest for the home cook to master. This recipe is by no means as simple as the Easy Chocolate Buttercream on page 432, but it is a good next step on the way to more involved icings such as Italian meringue. You begin by combining egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl and then whisking them over a pan of simmering water. Because the heat is more gentle, you won’t have to use a candy thermometer. Once the sugar has melted, and the egg whites are warm, the bowl is transferred to an electric-mixer stand and the mixture whipped to stiff peaks. When the mixture is completely cool, softened butter is beaten in piece by piece, to create a silky smooth icing. It is ultrarich and delicious, and can be used on cakes that run the gamut from homespun to oh-so-fancy.