Stable Vanilla Buttercream Recipe for Hot Weather

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This Summer, something happened to me that has never happened before (to my knowledge at least): one of my cakes melted in the outdoor heat. I made a birthday cake for a dear friend’s daughter – my vegan vanilla cake with vegan vanilla buttercream. The party was outdoors and the temperature was around 85 degrees. I refrigerated the cake up until I needed to drive it to the party, thinking that would be enough to preserve it for a few hours. But about an hour after the cake was displayed, the thing started melting (along with my heart). Thankfully, these were the kind of friends who were able to laugh about it with me as it all fell apart. Here’s a before and after:

Although it was a first for me, it got me thinking about so many of you who live in hot and humid climates. I’ve even gotten questions over the years from said people wondering how to make their buttercream more heat stable. The fact of the matter is, the butter in buttercream frosting starts to break down when it’s in an environment that’s above 82 degrees, and vegan butter has an even lower melting point. So, I thought I’d do some experimenting on how to add stability to your buttercream (both vegan and non) for those hot and humid days while keeping your frosting nice and tasty. 

For my experiment, I created four mini cakes and frosted them each with different frostings using my favorite vanilla buttercream recipe as a base: 

• All butter (aka the recipe as-is)
• Half butter and half shortening
• Half butter and half shortening + meringue powder for added stability
• Half vegan butter and half shortening (with coconut milk as the liquid)

I refrigerated each cake until firm before placing them in the direct sun on an 88 degree day with 35% humidity and here’s a video of what happened:

If you’re into cake videos like this one, head on over to my YouTube Channel. You’ll find all sorts of cake decorating tutorials, recipes, and my entire Cake Basics series in video format. I’m always adding new videos there, so be sure to hit the subscribe button so you’ll always be the first to know about a new one. 

Buttercream Heat Test Results

Over the course of the two hours I had the cakes in the sun, none of them completely melted, which was kind of disappointing because I wanted things to be more dramatic. The day just wasn’t hot enough. So in the end, I had to break out the hair dryer to see what would happen with more heat applied. 

After I cranked up the heat on these cakes, the all-butter buttercream frosted cake melted into soup:

The cake with the half vegan butter and half shortening got a huge air bubble in the frosting that started to melt:

The half butter and half shortening frosted cake looked pretty good after one hour but this is after two hours out in the direct sun + hair dryer:

And the half butter/half shortening with added meringue powder had relatively no change: 

I did try an all-shortening frosting because I hear that’s really heat stable, but just couldn’t get over how terrible it tasted. You’d have to use a lot of flavoring to get it to taste normal (and even then, the texture is a little weird).

I concluded that when you’re up against crazy heat (according to these test results at least), use half butter and half shortening with meringue powder. If you’re in need of vegan frosting, you can chance it with half vegan butter and half shortening or try the all-shortening route (with the meringue powder omitted) if you can get it to taste good. I’m going to add my preferred recipe below and in the notes, I will show you how to adapt the recipe for using all-shortening, making it vegan, etc. 

What is High Ratio Shortening?

When you think of shortening, what do you think of? Crisco is what I thought of before all my research into heat stable buttercream. It turns out that Crisco (and most shortening) is made with zero trans fat – in other words, it won’t add enough stability to your frosting. So in order to add that stability, you need what’s called high ratio shortening (sometimes called icing shortening). High ratio shortening has a high ratio of fat with added emulsifiers and no added salt or water. In other words, the micro emulsifiers in it help your frosting to hold more sugar and liquid and thus make it more temperature resistant. 

Unlike Crisco though, high ratio shortening can’t be found at your typical grocery store. I found this high ratio shortening on Amazon,, but there are other brands that cake decorators use (see the list below). You might be lucky and live close to a cake decorating shop that sells high ratio shortening, so check your local area to see. If you can’t find it locally, here are some links to online cake shops I’ve collected (not sponsored):

• Sweetex High Ratio Shortening
• Alpine High Ratio Shortening
• Bake Supply High Ratio Shortening
• Oasis High Ratio Shortening

What is Meringue Powder? 

Meringue powder is basically powdered egg whites, but it also contains cornstarch, sugar for sweetness, gum arabic for thickening, and cream of tartar which helps with stabilizing. If you want to try just adding meringue powder to your buttercream without adding any shortening, add 1 Tbsp (per batch of frosting) by mixing it into the powdered sugar before adding it to the butter in the linked recipe. 

With taste and stability in mind, here’s my new go-to recipe for heat stable buttercream:

Did you try this recipe? I want to know that you think! Let me know in the comments below or feel free to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram and show me. I love to see what you create! And if you have a go-to recipe for heat stable buttercream or technique that you swear by, let us all know in the comments. We’re all in this together!