Peanut Butter Frosting
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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 1/2-1 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 (226 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (245 g) creamy peanut butter
- 3 cups (375 g) powdered sugar
- 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.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, 1 cup (245 g) creamy peanut butter
- 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.3 cups (375 g) powdered sugar
- Stir in vanilla extract and salt.1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ teaspoon salt
- With mixer on low-speed, add milk and stir until well-combined. Gradually increase speed to high and beat for 30 seconds.2 Tablespoons milk
- 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
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
Used this recipe many times always good! This time I did half a cup of peanut butterbutter, half a cup of the Jif chocolate peanut butter spread, and ID ready made chocolate mocha instead of milk. I would spread this on a dirty she’d asks eat it! Sooooo good!
That sounds divine! Thanks for sharing, Jeff 🥰
Absolutely delicious!!! I made this recipe before and when I was looking for a peanut butter recipe because I couldn’t find this one it popped back up again so I was so happy to find it and now I wrote it down so I’ll never lose it again! thank you Sam! by the way I added just a little bit of peanut butter whiskey for a kick it is so freaking delicious!
Love this frosting!!
Made a chocolate cake and started looking for a homemade frosting and found this recipe.
Although by itself, it was a tad bit too sweet, with the cake. Perfection. 👌🏼
Very content and can not wait to share it at my family’s get together later today. 😋
Excellent! This is my go to every time I need peanut butter icing!
This was perfect and I’ll use this recipe again! Such a good balance of sweetness and peanut butter flavor. I used it as frosting for a 2-tiered 9” cake and it was plenty. I did add just a touch more milk to make it easier to pipe. Sam’s recipes never let me down!
Needs either less powdered sugar or more milk. Would not pipe at all. Too stiff.
Hi Sandy! You do want to add the sugar gradually to prevent this from happening. 🙁
Amazingly creamy and Delicious!
Do you have to refrigerate the leftover cake with the icing? Or will it stay for a day or two at room temp? Thanks!
Hi Kristy! I am personally ok with leaving it at room temperature for a couple of days. 🙂
This was just a practice run for my grandkids for Valentine’s Day and oh my, this frosting is dangerous! I made thin sheet pan brownies, used a heart shaped cookie cutter and made sandwiches. I also sprinkled with powdered sugar.🤩🤩🤩
I didn’t care for this to much. I’m willing to try it again but it didn’t pipe well, wasnt very flavorful.
That’s really disappointing to hear. Did you make any omissions or substitutions? Maybe try a different brand of peanut butter? It should taste like a nice, sweet peanut butter.
This frosting is insanely good on banana bread. It’s not overly sweet, which also makes it REALLY easy to eat with a spoon, too. Tastes identical to the filling inside Purdy’s Himalayan Pink Salt Peanut Butter chocolates. I didn’t use any milk, which accounted for using a bit less icing sugar, and whipped it until very light and fluffy. (Now I need to go have another spoonful.)
The measurements are perfect, thank you for having weighted values. I used natural peanut butter, not too sweet, did a 2 layer round cake perfectly. Saved this winner.
This frosting was PE-RF-ECT for my chocolate cake !
We love that combination, Julianne! Thanks for the review 🥰
This is the best peanut butter icing I’ve ever made! My husband absolutely loved it. I made a chocolate fudge cake and used this to frost it. My husband said it is better than a Reese’s cup!
I never leave reviews, but man, this buttercream is Dangerous! Sooo good. Followed the recipe to the letter and it came out so smooth. It’s basically the filling for a peanut butter ball, which is probably why it’s so good lol
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review, Hannah! I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much! 🙂
love this frosting!!! Yummy!!!!