I absolutely love adding freeze-dried fruit to my buttercream recipes for authentic flavor – I’ve done it before with freeze-dried strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. So when I saw freeze-dried cherries at my local grocery store for the very first time, I knew just what I wanted to do with them! This cherry buttercream is perfectly flavored with tart cherries, ends up the prettiest natural color, and is the ideal frosting consistency for decorating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and more.
What are Freeze-Dried Cherries?
Freeze-dried cherries are not the same thing as frozen cherries. Freeze-drying begins with freezing the cherries, but the drying part of the process involves removing all of the liquid contained in the frozen cherries. What’s left is a completely dried out version of the cherry with the flavor perfectly maintained. The freeze-dried cherries can then be ground into powder, which can easily be added to buttercream. This way, you can add a powerful cherry flavor without ruining the consistency of the buttercream by adding too much liquid content, which is what would happen if you simply added cherries in their original form.
Where to Get Freeze-Dried Cherries
I was able to find these freeze-dried cherries at my local Trader Joe’s (they’re only $3.99 in the store), but in all my years of flavoring buttercream with freeze-dried fruit I’ve never seen cherries there until now. Usually you can find freeze-dried fruit in the snack section of most grocery stores and I’ve also seen options at Target, Costco, and any natural food store. Cherries, though, might be a little harder to find than strawberries and raspberries. If you don’t see them locally, you can find some options on Amazon.
Cherry Buttercream Ingredients
- Freeze-Dried Cherries. As previously mentioned, the process of freeze-drying removes all the liquid from the cherries yet keeps all the powerful flavor preserved. The cherries are so dry that they can be ground into powder and added to the buttercream for flavor and color.
- Unsalted Butter. This is the base of the buttercream and gives the frosting a rich buttery flavor and velvety smooth texture. If you only have salted butter on hand, you can use that instead and omit the salt at the end of the recipe. And if you want a vegan version of this buttercream, substitute the regular butter for an equal amount of vegan butter sticks and use non-dairy milk instead of whole milk.
- Vanilla + Almond Extract. These enhance the overall flavor of the cherries in this frosting – especially the almond! The almond is key to amplifying the cherry flavor but if you’d rather not use it, you can omit it and use 2 teaspoons of vanilla instead of one.
- Whole Milk. This thins out the buttercream while binding all the ingredients together. I like to use a liquid with lots of fat for this part because it makes the final frosting more velvety smooth, so whole milk is my go-to. If you’d rather use a dairy-free option you can substitute this with any milk alternative, but keep in mind that the flavor of the liquid will affect the overall frosting flavor.
- Powdered Sugar. This adds stability to the frosting while sweetening. I like to use less powdered sugar than the average American buttercream so that the frosting doesn’t end up cloyingly sweet.
- Salt. A pinch of salt helps balance the sweetness beautifully.
How to Make Freeze-Dried Cherry Buttercream
Step 1. Grind the cherries into powder using a food processor. You can alternatively add the cherries into a Ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
Step 2. Cream the butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer and large bowl. You want it really creamy, so beat on high speed for about 5 minutes.
Step 3. Mix in the cherry powder, vanilla, almond extract, and milk.
Step 4. Mix in the powdered sugar a few cups at a time, then mix in the salt.
I’m obsessed with how pretty the natural cherry color turned out! It has an authentic cherry flavor and ends up so silky smooth – extremely easy to work with for filling and frosting cakes, piping onto cupcakes, decorating cookies, filling macarons, and more!
What Cake Flavors to Pair with Cherry Buttercream
This cherry buttercream will pair well with any cake that has notes of chocolate, almond, citrus, vanilla, or cinnamon spice. I’ve listed a few cake suggestions from my blog below – note that you’ll need to double the cherry buttercream recipe below to have enough for filling and frosting.
- Chocolate Cake or Chocolate Cupcakes
- Vanilla Cake or Vanilla Cupcakes
- White Cake
- Lemon Cake
- Chai Cake or Chai Cupcakes
- Pistachio Cake
I hope you love this cherry buttercream as much as I do! Let me know what cake flavor you paired it with in the comments below (be sure to leave a star rating!) and feel free to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram to show me if you post a photo. I love to see what you create with my recipes!
Freeze-Dried Cherry Buttercream
Ingredients
- 1 Cup (226g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3/4 Cup (34g) freeze-dried cherries
- 3 Tbsp (45ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract*
- 3 Cups (360g) powdered sugar
- pinch of salt, or to taste
Instructions
- With a food processor, grind the freeze-dried cherries into a fine powder. You can alternatively place the cherries in a Ziploc bag and crush them into powder with a rolling pin.
- Whip the butter using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed until it’s creamy and light in color, about 5 minutes, scraping down the bowl and paddle as needed. Add the cherry powder, milk, vanilla, and almond extract and continue to mix on medium until fully combined.
- Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time and mix on low speed, scraping down the bowl and paddle after each addition. Add a pinch of salt and mix on low speed until fully combined and smooth, 1-2 minutes.
Notes
- Frost 12-15 cupcakes with a piping bag
- Fill and crumb coat a three-layer 6-inch cake or two-layer 8-inch cake. To have enough for frosting and decorating as well, double the recipe.
I’m an old music instructor still teaching in a Kansas college, and was given the assignment of making something sweet for the music faculty every week after that professor retired. At the time, I had zero experience creating any dessert, but soon discovered that 1) it’s not too hard if one follows rhe recipe and, 2) the music faculty here will consume virtually anything. After visiting many sites, I have found your website to contain many excellent recipes. Now this week, I thought I’d try French vanilla cake with cherry icing (using Trader Joe’s freeze dried cherries). I have found, in my brief career of being a “creator of cakes” [ there’s probably a word for that] that cream cheese adds a texture to frosting that plain butter lacks. So my question is
whether one can substitute cream cheese for half the butter in this recipe?
Hi Charles! I’m so excited for you to try this recipe and I’m cheering you on in baking dessert for the music faculty. That’s a fun assignment! If you’d like to substitute half of the butter for an equal amount of cream cheese, I am sure that will be absolutely delicious. I’m gonna have to try it sometime!