5-Minute Fresh Lemon Buttercream Frosting
This lemon buttercream frosting has serious flavor to it! It’s made with both lemon juice and lemon zest for that extra flavor punch. This icing is easy to make in just 5 minutes and perfect to add to all your favorite Spring desserts like lemon curd cake!
What makes this fresh lemon buttercream special is that we’re using both lemon juice AND lemon zest. The juice gives you that bright, tart flavor and the zest is where all the real lemon oil and intensity lives.
Together this bright frosting with lemon juice and zest actually tastes like lemon, not just lemon-adjacent. As a trained pastry chef, that double hit of flavor is the kind of thing I can’t skip.
It’s light, fluffy, and comes together in about 5 minutes. I love it on lemon cupcakes, strawberry lemon cupcakes, and it’s basically mandatory on my lemon curd cake– that cake has so many layers of lemon flavor going on and this frosting ties it all together perfectly.
If there’s one thing I learned in pastry school, it’s that buttercream is a blank canvas. We did an entire session on frostings and flavoring them, and I remember standing there completely overwhelmed by the possibilities, in the best way.
Lemon was always at the top of my list though, because honestly lemon desserts are my absolute weakness!
How to make Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Scrape down the bowl and turn the mixer back on low speed.
Add in the lemon zest, juice, milk, and salt if using and beat for 2-3 minutes on medium speed, thats it!
Yield
This recipe makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes or to fill and frost an 8″ 2 layer cake.
5-Minute Fresh Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups (420 g) confectioners sugar
- 1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 tsp lemon zest
- 2 tsp lemon juice, fresh
- 1 tbsp (1 tbsp) milk
- pinch (pinch) kosher salt, optional
Equipment
Instructions
- In the bowl of a hand or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar and 1 cup softened butter. Mix on low speed working up to medium as the sugar combines with the butter. About 2-3 mins.
- Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides. Add the 2 tsp lemon zest and lemon juice.
- Turn the mixer back to low speed and add 1 tbsp milk, and the pinch of salt if using. Mix on medium for 3 minutes and enjoy!
How long can you leave it “on the counter” before using? How long can it be refrigerated before use? Looking at making this weekend for next weekend.
Thanks!
Hi Ingrid! I would leave it on the counter just overnight or up to 12 hours. Otherwise I would refrigerate it and then take it out an hour or so before use so that it loosens up a bit. You can totally make it a week in advance and keep it in the fridge. You might need to rewhip it if its too hard when you take it out of the fridge. Hope this helps!
This recipe was awesome! Tasted so good and worked out perfectly!
Amazing! Thank you so much Jenny, Im so glad you loved this recipe!
Love the flavors and it was easy to make following your receipt.
Thanks for sharing.
YAY thank you so much for letting me know Joy!