A silky smooth but perfectly pipeable peanut butter frosting that’s the perfect complement to any cake or cupcake. Also great for just eating by the spoonful!
Maybe you guys haven’t noticed, but I’ve been working on bulking up my “Frostings” section on the blog.
In the past, I would share cake or cupcake recipes and tag on my preferred complementary frosting, but I’m a big believer in choices. Maybe you’d rather frost your funfetti cake with chocolate frosting (or even peanut butter frosting) instead of buttercream, right? Well I wanted to have a good variety of options for you to choose from.
So far I’ve shared my favorites of the following:
- Cream cheese frosting (<—- possibly my favorite frosting of all-time)
- Chocolate frosting
- Vanilla buttercream frosting
And today I’m adding peanut butter frosting to the list.
This recipe is super easy to make, and on Monday I’ll be sharing a very complementary and very dark chocolate cupcake recipe with you, but of course you can put it on whatever you want. You can even just eat it by the spoonful, I know I did.
And yet it remains a mystery to me why my cardio sessions aren’t paying off 😭
Anyway, Peanut Butter Frosting requires just 6 ingredients to make. It’s smooth, creamy, and is great for piping on top of cupcakes or decorating a cake.
Tips for Making Peanut Butter Frosting
- While chunky or creamy peanut butter can work in this peanut butter frosting recipe, I don’t recommend using chunky unless you don’t intend to pipe the frosting. The little peanut pieces will clog up your frosting tips in a second.
- I don’t recommend using natural peanut butter (the kind that separates, you know the one that you usually need to stir before using). I haven’t tried it myself but I’m pretty certain that it wouldn’t work too nicely work with this recipe (it would be too oily).
- This peanut butter frosting pipes very nicely as written. However, for a stiffer frosting, you can add an additional ½-1 cup (65-125g) of powdered sugar.
How Many Cupcakes/How Much Cake Will this Peanut Butter Frosting Cover?
- If you’re generously frosting your cupcakes (as seen in my cupcake photo below), then this frosting will handily cover 12-15 cupcakes. If you’re being a bit more modest, it will cover 24 (I covered 24 cupcakes with peanut butter frosting rosettes using the 1M tip).
- This frosting will also cover a 9×13 sheet cake or a round 2-layer 8″ or 9″ cake. Now I’m just thinking about how I want to make a cake with this frosting and then cover it with ganache… Yum!
Enjoy!
Oh, and do you have any requests for other frosting recipes you’d like to see? I’m currently working on caramel but would love any suggestions that you have!
How to Make Peanut Butter Frosting
Peanut Butter Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature (226g)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter (245g)
- 3 cups powdered sugar (375g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Combine butter and peanut butter in a large bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until creamy and well-combined.
- Gradually (about ⅓ cup at a time), with mixer on low speed add powdered sugar until completely combined. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so all ingredients are well-combined.
- Stir in vanilla extract and salt.
- With mixer on low-speed, add milk and stir until well-combined. Gradually increase speed to high and beat for 30 seconds.
- Spread or pipe frosting onto completely cooled cupcakes or cake.
Notes
Natural Peanut Butter
Since first sharing the recipe I have now tested this recipe with natural peanut butter and it worked just fine, though was a bit gritty.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Cherie
This is hands down the best peanut butter frosting. It tastes like what I get at my favorite bakery. It’s even forgiving. The first time I made it I just dumped everything in the bowl before realizing how stupid I was, and then had to fish out the butter, dump out the powdered sugar and start over. It was STILL five stars.
Brittany
Made this today to go with your Vanilla cake recipe! Both turned out AMAZING!! Caught my hubby eating the extra frosting right out of the tube 😂 Thank you for sharing!!
Jaytoya Price
The best peanut butter frosting. I put a cup and a half of butter in the bowl before looking for a recipe, bit it still turned out so amazing!!! This will be my go to recipe. Thanks
Alison
Best on frosting I’ve made. Not super sweet and you really taste the pb.
Emma
This buttercream is everything! We used less powdered sugar (220grams) and it still turned out amazing!
Will make this over and over in a heartbeat! Thank you!
Emily Moore
Amazing recipe! I used heavy whipping cream instead of milk, but I’m sure it would be just as good with milk! It’s so light, I could eat it by the spoonful.
Thanks!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
That’s our favorite way to eat it 😄 We’re so happy you liked the end result Emily!
Jaytoya Price
By the spoonful is easily the best way to eat it 😋 this cake was for my husband so I was just eating the frosting along the way. It’s delicious
Jane Piekarski
Greetings from Maryland Eastern Shore!
I just finished baking two dozen chocolate zucchini cupcakes and will be using your peanut butter frosting recipe to ice the cupcakes.
This is the second time I have made this frosting! Creamy and deeeelicious!
The best recipe ever!
Thank you!