Buttercreams are the largest type of frosting on my site, and each offers a unique blend of texture, flavor, ingredients, modifications, and difficulty. This guide will compare key characteristics to help you navigate this extensive category. By the end, you'll have a clearer idea of which frosting to choose—and maybe even discover a new favorite!

What classifies a frosting as buttercream?

Buttercreams are frostings with butter as the primary fat in the recipe. Butter gives buttercreams a prominent buttery flavor, a creamy texture, and relatively good stability.   

I have two major groups of Buttercreams on my site: Simple Buttercreams and True Buttercreams. The buttercreams within a specific group have similar characteristics, such as preparation methods, textures, modification capabilities, and stability.

Simple buttercreams are made by straightforward mixing of ingredients. These thicker and exceptionally stable frostings make them perfect for easy, reliable frosting. Thanks to their high ratio of undissolved sugar, these frostings can form a crust, ideal for intricate, long-lasting piped decorations. The primary member of this category is the ever-popular American buttercream.

True Buttercreams contain frostings that require creating an emulsion, typically requiring more steps and time. This type of preparation creates buttercreams with a smooth and creamy texture and no graininess due to the dissolved sugars. While these buttercreams require more effort and ingredients, they deliver melt-in-your-mouth textures and ultra-smooth, professional decorating results.

How do you choose a buttercream?

There are many ways for me to help you choose a good buttercream. One popular request is to rank them in sweetness. Here, you can see their sugar levels:

When choosing a buttercream, however, it's essential to consider more than just sugar levels, as sweetness perception can vary depending on other components in the recipe. For instance, my black buttercream contains more sugar than Russian buttercream, but I find the latter tastes much sweeter due to the condensed milk. 

In general, you’ll want to consider a fuller picture of what each buttercream offers. Below, we'll briefly explore each type, listed by difficulty level, to help you find the perfect match.

Eight Buttercreams from Easiest to Most Challenging

1 | Classic American Buttercream

Classic American Buttercream is arguably the most recognizable and popular frosting due to its easy method and famously assertive, sweet, buttery flavor. The primary ingredients are butter and powdered sugar, making it powerfully sweet and dense. 

As the only Simple Buttercream on this list, American Buttercream will have a mildly granular texture due to the undissolved powdered sugar. In my version, I focused on lessening the texture plus balancing sweetness to create a lighter version of American Buttercream that you’ll turn to repeatedly. 

Sugarologie suggestions for Classic American Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Buttery Vanilla Yellow, Sprinkle 2.0, Chocolate, and Fluffy Vanilla White (enhanced box cake)

Do choose Classic American Buttercream if:

• You’re just starting your baking journey. This buttercream is where bakers usually begin, as it is typically the most familiar. 
• You love a nostalgic buttercream flavor that is very sweet and buttery.
• You need a crusting type of frosting (for piping flowers or intricate, long-lasting designs).
• You don’t have access to a stand mixer; you can easily make this one with a hand mixer.

Don’t choose Classic American Buttercream if:

• You prefer a very lightly flavored and textured buttercream.
• You want a not-too-sweet frosting.
• You don’t like grainy or granular textures in your frosting. (In this case, you’ll need one of the True Buttercreams, which all contain dissolved sugar and include every other buttercream in this list.)

To learn more, check out my American Buttercream Guide.

2 | Russian Buttercream

Russian buttercream, or condensed milk frosting, is one of the simplest to prepare in the True Buttercream family, taking around 15 minutes to make. The primary ingredients, butter, and condensed milk, create a frosting that boasts a rich, dairy-forward flavor.

This frosting is traditionally quite dense, but my updated recipe is much lighter and features a silky, melt-in-your-mouth texture. It offers excellent stability, making it a great choice for those starting to work with True Buttercreams.

Sugarologie suggestions for Russian Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Ube Velvet, Butter Spice, Tres Leches Cinnamon

Do choose Russian Buttercream if:

• You’re just starting with emulsion-based buttercreams/True Buttercreams. This great frosting requires minimum effort and ingredients that yield excellent results. 
• You enjoy the “butter” in buttercreams or eat condensed milk by the spoonful; this is a rich and sweet frosting.
• You need a frosting quickly and prefer not to cook/heat anything.

Don’t choose Russian Buttercream if:

• you prefer a very lightly flavored and textured buttercream.
• you don't enjoy a strong dairy flavor or condensed milk.
• you need a naturally pure white buttercream (although this one can be color-corrected using purple food dye.)

To learn more, check out my Russian Buttercream Guide.

3 | Ermine Buttercream

Ermine buttercream is made by mixing a thickened and sweetened flour paste with butter. The flour paste has a smooth gel-like texture, creating a surprisingly light and creamy buttercream when combined with the butter. Many describe its texture as similar to whipped cream, with a flavor reminiscent of cooked pudding.

A flour paste might seem unusual for a buttercream, but has incredible strength. Ermine Buttercream, in particular, stood out for its heat and pressure stability among all the buttercreams I tested. 

Sugarologie suggestions for Ermine Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Red Velvet, Chocolate Indulgence, any of my Chiffons
• When I need the texture of whipped cream but require more stability, I typically choose between this frosting and my Sweet Cream Buttercream. Both will leave tasters curious about the exceptional "whipped cream" you've used on your dessert.

Do choose Ermine Buttercream if you:

• Enjoy whipped cream frostings, but you need something more substantial and long-lasting for your cakes.
• Want to try the original frosting for red velvet or a frosting for more old-fashioned American cakes. Many people have told me this is what their grandmothers made, though they didn’t know the name.
• Need a super stable frosting—this one and Italian Meringue Buttercream performed exceptionally well in my heat tests.

Don’t Choose Ermine Buttercream if you:

• Like more buttery or denser frostings.
• Don’t like the flavor or textures of puddings.
• Are just starting with cake decorating and require something that looks immediately and easily polished; this one takes a little more time and patience to get super smooth, but it definitely can be done.

To learn more, check out my Ermine Buttercream Guide here.

4 | French Buttercream

French buttercream is a beautifully rich and decadent frosting made of egg yolks, sugar, and butter. Because of the egg yolks, texture-wise it has a bit more body than the meringue buttercreams (Swiss and Italian) and a nice glossy sheen.

My recipe is versatile, allowing you to use either just egg yolks or whole eggs. Adding yolks enhances the buttercream without making it overly eggy; it takes on a light pastry cream-like quality. As an homage to classic French pastry, I've made this buttercream a bit on the buttery side—not overbearingly, but the perfect luxurious topping for your cakes. 

Sugarologie suggestions for French Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Buttery Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry
• I adore using this buttercream to fill macarons, as it's a fantastic way to utilize leftover egg yolks from making the shells. Its buttery, rich flavor perfectly complements the dry, chewy texture of the macaron shells.
• As this buttercream is beautifully buttery, I’ll often use it in thinner layers for decadent cake layers and in fatter layers with lighter cakes to create balance. 

Do choose French Buttercream if:

• You want a rich and luscious buttercream for your desserts. 
• you want a denser, moderately sweet buttercream. This one has less sweetness than the Russian and American dreamy buttercreams but also has a bit of the same density that they do.

Don’t choose French Buttercream if:

• You need a white buttercream. Due to the egg yolks, this one is naturally more yellow than the others on this list.
• You don’t like the flavor and texture of butter.
• You want a lighter texture for your buttercream.

To learn more, check out my French Buttercream Guide.  

5 | Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Swiss meringue buttercream is a favorite among cake decorators for its smooth finish and ability to hold intricate piping details. My recipe offers a delightfully sweet, buttery flavor with a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

Swiss meringue buttercream is made with egg whites, sugar, and butter. The egg whites and sugar are heated over a water bath (bain marie). Whipping the meringue syrup is optional; I review this more in my guide.

Sugarologie suggestions for Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Sprinkle 2.0, Chocolate Indulgence, Vanilla Almond White

Do choose Swiss Meringue Buttercream if:

• If you want to start experimenting with the classic buttercreams commonly used in pastry and cake decorating, this is an excellent one to begin with. If you browse beautifully decorated cakes on Instagram, there’s a high chance that’s this one due to its popularity.
• You need a super smooth and glossy finish for your cakes.

Don’t Choose Swiss Meringue Buttercream if:

• You don’t like the taste of butter; the meringue offers minimal flavor. The sugar and egg white proteins help cut the fattiness of the butter, but the base flavor for this buttercream leans more vanilla-buttery.
• You need something that withstands very high heat and humidity. (usually temps above ambient room temperature) You can work around this, but it involves using fat with a higher melting temperature, such as vegetable shortening.

To learn more, check out my Swiss Meringue Buttercream Guide.

6 | German Buttercream

I like to think of German Buttercream as the more sophisticated older sister of Ermine Buttercream. It has a very similar whipped cream-like texture and is not very sweet. Instead of a cooked pudding flavor like Ermine, German buttercream has an amazingly delicious complex vanilla custard flavor. If you’re ready to step up your Ermine Frosting, this is the next one for you to try.

Instead of adding a flour paste-like in Ermine, we add pastry cream to the butter. Pastry cream contains starch and eggs, forming a loose gel. Combined with butter, it creates a buttercream with a light texture similar to Ermine.

Sugarologie suggestions for Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Buttery Vanilla Yellow, Chocolate Indulgence, Carrot Lover’s Cake

Choose German Buttercream if:

• You adore the texture and flavor of pastry cream or custards.
• You want a more decadent frosting for your dessert.
• You love Ermine Buttercream and are ready to amp things up flavor-wise; the pastry cream does wonders for this buttercream, giving it a delicious, rich, custardy flavor.

Don’t choose German Buttercream if:

• You need a white buttercream; this one is more cream/light yellow colored due to the pastry cream.
• You don’t like the flavor of eggs; although there is minimal egg flavor, there is a hint of it inside this buttercream more than others on this list.

To learn more, check out my German  Buttercream guide.

7 | Italian Meringue Buttercream

Italian meringue buttercream has a lovely, balanced, sweet, buttery flavor with a thick and creamy texture. This is a frosting made with egg whites, sugar, and butter. It’s similar to Swiss meringue buttercream, but instead of heating the egg whites with sugar, a sugar syrup is prepared separately and then slowly poured into the whipped egg whites. 

The sugar syrup introduces an extra layer of difficulty, requiring multitasking to make the traditional Italian meringue. However, there are more accessible methods to simplify the process, which I’ll cover in my guide. Despite the added effort, the sugar syrup is well worth it, as it enhances the stability, making Italian meringue buttercream a highly reliable choice for intricate decorating tasks. 

Sugarologie suggestions for Italian Meringue Buttercream:

• Cake flavor pairings: Sprinkle 2.0, Chocolate Indulgence, Vanilla Almond White

Do choose Italian meringue Buttercream if:

• You need the stability to hold up substantial layer cakes or intricate designs. This one performed well in my heat and humidity tests.
• If you like Swiss Meringue Buttercream but want a buttercream with a bit more density; the sugar syrup adds a thicker texture to the buttercream.
• you want a white buttercream; use clear vanilla extract and light yellow butter to get a whiter color. 

Don’t choose Italian meringue Buttercream if:

• you don’t own a stand mixer. The other buttercreams may be made with a hand mixer (though I’ve never tried it). Still, this one will be the hardest to achieve without one because of the sugar syrup that needs to be poured in while the mixer is going.
• you’re just starting with the True Buttercreams. This one is one of the more advanced recipes and requires a bit of multitasking. 

To learn more, check out my Italian Meringue Buttercream Guide.

8 | Sugarologie Buttercreams

This category encompasses all the buttercreams I’ve developed, ranging from easy to advanced in difficulty, which is why I’ve listed it last.

These buttercreams deserve a separate category because their core method involves emulsifying a special sugar syrup into butter. I’ve created specific emulsion ratios based on the sugar syrup’s molecular composition (proteins, sugars, starches, etc.), resulting in unique flavors, appearances, and textures for each buttercream. I also prioritize stability, making these buttercreams suitable for intense decorating jobs.

I designed these buttercreams to address specific issues I’ve encountered with other frostings, which I detail below.

My suggestions for Sugarologie buttercreams:

• American Dreamy Buttercream: as a replacement for American Buttercream, e.g., Chocolate Cake, Vanilla Almond Cake, Sprinkle 2.0
• Sweet Cream Frosting: in any place you’d want whipped cream, e.g., all my chiffons
• The Black Buttercream: with my black cocoa cake
• ButterCream Cheese Frosting: Red Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake, Ube Velvet Cake

Do choose a Sugarologie  Buttercream if:

• You have a unique color, flavor, or textural requirement that can’t be found in other buttercreams. 
• You’re ready to try something new. I try to innovate with my Sugarologie frostings so you’ll experience new techniques, textures, colors, and flavors. 

Don’t choose a Sugarologie Buttercream if:

• You’re new to emulsion-based buttercreams. Most of these are the most advanced frosting recipes on my site. I will always guide you through every step, but I suggest starting with a few easier recipes first. American Dreamy Buttercream is the easiest of my emulsion-based buttercreams in this category, or you can start with some pastry classics, such as French or Swiss meringue Buttercream. 

Make the American Dreamy Buttercream recipe.
Make the Sweet Cream Frosting recipe.
Make The Black Buttercream recipe.
Make the ButterCream Cheese Frosting recipe.