Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Posted May 04, 2023, Updated Feb 13, 2024
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This lemon buttercream frosting is easy to make with 7 ingredients in 5 minutes. It’s sweet with a bold lemon flavor and perfect for frosting cakes, cupcakes, and cookies!
Sometimes I create a recipe and believe that I struck gold – and that’s exactly how I feel about this lemon buttercream frosting.
It is bright with a bold lemon flavor that keeps it from being overly sweet.
It’s irresistibly delicious piped onto vanilla cupcakes and lemon cupcakes or slathered yellow cake, lemon poppy seed cake, and lemon cookies.
Lemon Buttercream: Ingredients & Substitutions
- Lemon Juice. Use freshly squeezed or bottled lemon juice.
- Lemon Zest. Zest is optional, but recommended for the strongest lemon flavor.
- Whole Milk. Half and half or heavy cream are both good substitutes for whole milk.
- Salted butter. unsalted butter works well in place of salted butter.
- Vanilla extract. the seeds of 1 vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste are good substitutes.
- Fine sea salt: just a pinch of salt brings out the flavor of the strawberry frosting!
- Powdered sugar. You can make your own refined-sugar free powdered sugar.
How to Make Lemon Frosting
First, add the butter, lemon juice, vanilla milk sea salt and 1 cup powdered sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or to a large bowl (to beat with a handheld mixer).
Then, beat until the mixture is smooth.
Next, add the remaining powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.
Note: You can choose the consistency of your frosting. Less powdered sugar will make it less firm, and perfect for a cake filling.
Adding more powdered sugar will make it thicker and firmer so it holds up to piping!
Then, if desired, beat in the lemon zest. This intensifies the lemon flavor, so I suggest tasting the frosting first before adding it!
Serve
Here are some suggested uses for this lemon frosting recipe:
- Use it as a cake filling inside this yellow cake!
- It makes a delicious frosting on top of cupcakes as well, try it on these: vanilla cupcakes, funfetti cupcakes and of course, lemon cupcakes.
- Slather it on top of this homemade angel food cake, lemon cookies, or sugar cookies!
Store/Freeze
Store leftover lemon frosting in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for 2 months. I often store/freeze it in the piping bag.
Let the frosting come to room temperature before using. Make sure to be patient and do not microwave the frosting.
You may need to beat it with additional powdered sugar to make it firm again.
Lemon Buttercream Frosting Recipe FAQs
Yes, this recipe is easily doubled to frost or fill a large cake.
Yes. Making your own powdered sugar is very easy. You can follow this healthy powdered sugar recipe (which uses coconut sugar) and use any granulated sugar you’d prefer.
Yes, start with ½ tsp of extract and add more to reach your desired flavor.
Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- ½ cup salted butter softened
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons whole milk
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a handheld mixer, beat together the butter, lemon juice, vanilla milk sea salt and 1 cup powdered sugar until smooth.
- Add remaining powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.
- Beat in lemon zest.
- Use to frost your favorite cakes, cookies, etc.
Video
Notes
- Lemon Juice. Use freshly squeezed or bottled lemon juice.
- Lemon Zest. Zest is optional, but recommended for the strongest lemon flavor.
- Whole Milk. Half and half or heavy cream are both good substitutes for whole milk.
- Salted butter. unsalted butter works well in place of salted butter.
- Vanilla extract. the seeds of 1 vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste are good substitutes.
- Fine sea salt: just a pinch of salt brings out the flavor of the strawberry frosting!
- Powdered sugar. You can make your own refined-sugar free powdered sugar.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I added the zest of an entire large lemon and liked the zing and lemon taste much better than the smaller amount listed. Make sure to beat for several minutes to make light and fluffy. Great tasting frosting!
Hi, does this lemon frosting harden?
Yes it does!