Brown Butter Frosting

Brown butter frosting takes frosting to a whole new level!  The brown butter adds a rich, slightly nutty flavor to the icing and is a nice balance to all the sweetness of frosting.

I am a total fan of brown butter.  Not only do I love adding it to my frosting but I love putting it into baked goods and using it with pasta.  This brown butter pasta is one of my favorites. I honestly can’t think of anything I don’t like it on.  This one simple ingredient can transform your baked goods.  It only takes a couple of minutes to make brown butter and  you can use my easy to follow how to make brown butter tutorial here.

Brown butter is basically regular butter that has been cooked, just long enough, to brown or toast the milk solids in the butter.  You are taking the butter to just past it’s melting point and allowing it to turn golden brown without burning it.

How to Make Brown Butter Frosting

After making your brown butter (follow tutorial here) allow the brown butter to cool down, to about room temperature.  You don’t want it to cool down too much or it will begin to solidify again.  If this happens, just put it over a low heat and it will melt quickly.  You just don’t want the butter too hot when you add it into the sugar.

Mix the brown butter and powered sugar together.  Then add in vanilla and enough whipping cream to get the consistency you want.  If the frosting gets too runny, add in some more powdered sugar.  You want it soft enough to spread or pipe but not too soft so that it won’t hold a shape.

I like to use a piping bag to frost my cupcakes.  The disposable ones are super handy, just throw them away when you are done.  I also use a large decorating tip, one of my favorites is a large star tip.  Just place the tip inside the piping bag and trim off the end.  Place your piping bag with the tip inside, into a tall drinking glass.   Then fill the bag with frosting.  This is an easy way to get the frosting into the bag without making a mess.

Then just twist the top of the bag closed.  Hold the bag straight up and down and gently squeeze as you move the bag around in a circle on top of the cupcake. I eat cake so I can have frosting so I like a lot of frosting on my cupcakes.

That’s it!  This frosting is delicious on all kinds of cupcakes, I especially like them on my Spice Cupcakes.  It is also delicious on cookies like these Almond Toffee Cookies and you can even frost an entire cake with it, it would be amazing on this caramel cake recipe.  This recipe makes about 2 cups of frosting.  If you are frosting a cake, you will want to double the recipe.

Other favorite frosting recipes:

• Sugar Cookie Frosting
• Maple Frosting

My favorite cupcake decorating tools:

• Disposable Piping Bags
• Large Cake Decorating Tips