Easy Creamy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is creamy and is packed with deep chocolate flavor without being overly sweet. You only need 5 ingredients to make this creamy chocolate buttercream frosting (and a spoon to eat it!). Plus it’s hassle-free to make because I use cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate. 

Chocolate buttercream that is so creamy, fluffy, and soft!

Here are more recipes for Easy Creamy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, Classic Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting, and Easy Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting (Cheat’s Recipe).

This Creamy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is SO GOOD that it should legitimately come with a warning. Buttery, fluffy, creamy chocolate buttercream frosting with all the chocolate flavor that you’ll need. It pipes beautifully onto cakes and cupcakes, and is good enough to even eat on its own. 🙂

Chocolate frosting is easily my favorite type of frosting. Out of all the types of chocolate frosting out there, like chocolate Italian or Swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate French buttercream, fudgy chocolate buttercream frosting, chocolate whipped cream frosting, chocolate ganache frosting etc., this creamy chocolate buttercream frosting is my personal #1. And the fact that it’s the easiest out of all those to make, just makes it even better!

What makes this Creamy Chocolate Buttercream even better is that you can adjust it to your liking.

I change the amount of cocoa powder I add, to make this chocolate frosting two ways.

1. A Dark Chocolate Buttercream frosting – with extra cocoa powder, this buttercream is just as creamy and delicious with a little bitterness from the extra cocoa powder. It tastes like semi sweet chocolate buttercream.
2. A Classic Chocolate Buttercream frosting (or a sweeter chocolate buttercream) – made with less cocoa powder, this has the classic flavor of a sweet and chocolatey buttercream. Tastes almost like it’s made with milk chocolate.

Why is this creamy chocolate buttercream the best ever?

• This chocolate buttercream frosting is seriously super easy to make. This buttercream is made with cocoa powder, instead of melted chocolate. So there’s no hassle of melting and cooling chocolate. But do use a good cocoa powder, because that’s where all the chocolate flavor comes from.
• Speaking of, this chocolate frosting is really packed with some deep chocolate flavor. Since I’m using a whopping 3/4 of a cup of cocoa powder for the dark chocolate frosting, and 6 – 7 tbsp of cocoa powder for the sweeter chocolate frosting, there’s enough chocolatey goodness to go around.
• Using dutch cocoa means, that this buttercream frosting has a deeper chocolate flavor too. But if you only have natural cocoa at home, you can use that instead.
• Just like my Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe, this chocolate buttercream recipe is made with cool butter (not completely softened butter). This makes it wonderfully pipeable, BUT with a little extra milk or cream, it’s soft enough for old fashioned cakes too.
• This easy chocolate frosting needs ONLY 5 ingredients – Butter, Confectioner’s sugar, Cream, Cocoa powder, and Vanilla. You can add extra flavor if you want though, which brings me to my next point.
• This creamy chocolate buttercream frosting is very adaptable.
  • Want an even softer and creamier frosting? Add more milk/cream.
  • Want mocha buttercream frosting? Use 2 tsp of instant coffee that’s dissolved in 1 tbsp of cream or water, and add it to the mix.
  • How about jaffa buttercream frosting? Add 2 – 3 tsp of orange extract (plus extra orange zest if you like too).
  • And one of my favorites – brandy chocolate buttercream frosting! Add 2 – 3 tbsp of brandy to the frosting for a good dose of booze. You can sub the brandy with bourbon, or even rum or Irish whiskey too.

The butter for this buttercream frosting should be cool to start with. This is an important step. Usually buttercream recipes call for softened room temperature butter, but I find that if the butter is too soft, you have to add HEAPS of confectioner’s sugar to get the butter stiff enough for piping and creating creamy swirls. BUT, starting with butter that’s cool (not cold) and a little firm, gives you the best chocolate buttercream frosting that’s perfectly sweet, pipeable and swirl-able!

You can also change the consistency of this creamy chocolate buttercream frosting by changing the amount of liquid you add. 1/4 cup of cream is the minimum amount that I add. This obviously adds a creaminess to the buttercream as well. After this initial amount of cream, I add another dose of cream (after I’ve added the flavoring) to get the desired consistency.

If I’m making the sweeter chocolate buttercream, I don’t need to add as much of the extra cream as I would with the dark chocolate buttercream. This also depends on the season and ambient temperature. In the summer, I may not need any more cream because the butter will be softer and I won’t need more liquid to get a softer consistency. But in the winter, I may add the extra cream.

I used Callebaut cocoa powder to make this chocolate buttercream frosting. Callebaut cocoa powder is a dutch process cocoa powder. If you’re using a supermarket cocoa powder, PLEASE do measure the cocoa powder to get the best results. And if you prefer using cup measurements, be conservative with how much cocoa powder you add. 1 cup of gourmet cocoa powders like Callebaut or Valhrona weighs less than 1 cup of supermarket brand cocoa powders like Nestle or Hersheys. 

This really is the BEST chocolate frosting! You may need to grab a spoon because it’s inevitable that you’ll be licking chocolate frosting off the back of it! 🙂 And it’s even better on cakes.

Like this Classic Chocolate Cake…

Like this classic vanilla cake…

…Or this one bowl fudgy chocolate cake.