What does buttercream mean?
Buttercream is a rich, soft frosting made by beating butter together with powdered (icing) sugar until light and smooth, often enriched with vanilla, cocoa, melted chocolate, milk, or eggs depending on the style. It is the most widely used icing for layer cakes, cupcakes, and celebration bakes, prized both for its creamy flavour and for its workability — it can be spread with a palette knife for rustic finishes or piped into flowers, swirls, and borders for decoration. Bakers distinguish several varieties, including American buttercream (butter and sugar alone), Swiss and Italian meringue buttercreams (built on cooked egg-white meringues), and French buttercream (made with egg yolks), each differing in texture, sweetness, and stability. Though essentially a kitchen term rather than a literary one, buttercream carries warm connotations of home baking and festivity, and its versatility has made it a staple of modern patisserie vocabulary.
nounA soft, sweet icing or filling made by creaming together butter and powdered sugar, often with milk, flavourings, or egg, used to frost and decorate cakes and other baked goods.
- A soft icing or cake filling made from butter beaten with powdered sugar, typically flavoured with vanilla.
- (More broadly) any of a family of similar frostings, such as Swiss meringue or French buttercream, that use butter as their fat base.
"She piped delicate rosettes of buttercream along the top of the wedding cake."
"The bakery's signature chocolate cake comes layered with raspberry buttercream."
"Beat the buttercream until it turns pale and fluffy before spreading it between the sponge layers."
Rarely pluralised; the plural appears mainly when referring to distinct types or separate batches of buttercream.
"The pastry course covered three different buttercreams: American, Swiss, and French."
Despite its name, classic French buttercream contains no cream at all — just butter, sugar, and egg yolks whipped into silky submission.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of buttercream
Buttercream is a compound of two much older food words, each of Germanic origin. "Butter" entered English via Old English *butere*, borrowed from Latin *butyrum*, which itself derives from Greek *boutyron* — literally "cow cheese." "Cream" came into Middle English from Old French *cresme* or *creme*, ultimately traceable to a late Latin or Gallo-Romance source. The compound itself is a relatively recent formation, arising in the context of European and American cake-making traditions as butter-based icings became standard in home and professional baking.
How buttercream is actually used
Buttercream is a common noun in everyday baking vocabulary, largely neutral in register though strongly associated with domestic and artisanal baking contexts. It is usually treated as an uncountable mass noun ('too much buttercream'), but countable uses appear when referring to types or batches ('two buttercreams', 'a dairy-free buttercream').
Easily confused with buttercream
Fondant is a firm, dough-like sugar paste rolled over cakes for a smooth finish, whereas buttercream is a soft, spreadable frosting made primarily from butter and sugar.