Fluffy Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

I just realized that my blog is called "frost and serve", yet I haven't posted a recipe on frosting or icing yet.

My love for this frosting was renewed when my best friend became obsessed with it after she tasted the Hello Kitty fondant cake I made for my 7 year old cousin. It was a simple chocolate cake - which I make for almost 90% of the time. So to add a little special kick to it, I decided to use strawberry frosting instead of the traditional chocolate buttercream for filling the layers and crumb coating it.

Most of the strawberry frosted cakes or cupcakes I see use real strawberries. Sadly, it is not abundant from where I come from. :( This recipe is the perfect alternative for a fluffy frosting with the exact taste of strawberry. The color and aroma is deceiving; you'll really think that it's made from real strawberries! Every time I make this frosting, people who'll pass by the kitchen will ask "is that ice cream?" Every. Single. Time. That's how awesome it smells like. Wait until you taste it...


Fluffy Strawberry Frosting
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (softened)
5-6 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp McCormick strawberry extract*
3 tbsp milk (or water)
dash of salt

Instructions:

1. Cream together softened butter, strawberry extract, and salt. 
2. Add in powdered sugar one cup at a time, alternating with milk when the frosting becomes hard to stir. 
3. If  frosting is too thick, add in more milk until you reach desired consistency. 

Frosts one 2-layers 9" cake, plus more for decorating

Recipe adapted from iambaker.


*I use McCormick strawberry extract because it tints the frosting to pink even without using food coloring. If your brand of strawberry extract doesn't tint the frosting, add 2 drops of pink food coloring, or 1 drop of red food coloring. Add more until you reach desired tint.

The perfect part? You can pipe it! Let's be real here: you can't pipe frosting with real fruit bits because it'll just clog the piping tip. But with this recipe, you'll be more flexible in designing your cake or cupcake!

Here are some ideas in which you can use this strawberry frosting:

Strawberry and Vanilla Buttercream Swirl Cupcake

Strawberry Rose Cake (Slice shown above)