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How Much Buttercream Do I Need? Helpful Chart Included!

May 10, 2023 · In: FAQ, Featured

Whether you’re creating an intricate cake design, filling and frosting a cake of a specific size, or decorating a multitude of cupcakes, it can be overwhelming to estimate just how much buttercream frosting you’ll need for the task. Each of my buttercream recipes yield about 3 Cups of frosting, but exactly how far will you get with that amount? The answer depends on so many factors – the size of your cake or amount of cupcakes, the style of frosting finish you’re going for, whether you’re planning on using buttercream as filling between cake layers, and whether you’ll be piping decorations with it (to name just a few). 

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To make things a little easier, I whipped up some handy charts below to give you a good estimate of how much frosting to make for your bakes. 

Will This Chart Work with Any Kind of Frosting?

I wrote this chart with American Buttercream in mind (which is my go-to frosting). If you’re going by volume (not by weight),  this chart will work with any kind of frosting – swiss meringue buttercream, italian meringue buttercream, whipped cream frosting, etc. Most frosting recipes will state how much they yield in Cups (aka by volume), so you can base your estimations and scaling off of the chart below regardless of your preferred frosting. 

raspberry buttercream frosting recipe by sugar and sparrow

Tips for Scaling Frosting Recipes 

Let’s say you need 4.5 Cups of frosting based on the chart below, and you notice that one batch of the buttercream recipe you’re using yields only 3 Cups. How should you proceed? 

Working backwards, you’d divide 4.5 Cups by 3 Cups to get your answer: 4.5/3 = 1.5. In other words, you’ll need 1.5 batches of your buttercream recipe to have enough for your project. That means you’ll multiply each ingredient in your buttercream recipe by 1.5 to scale the recipe properly. 

If you don’t want to do all that math by hand, I recommend using a recipe scale calculator like this one where you can simply copy/paste your ingredients list and choose the scale amount (in this case, scale by one and one half) to get the correct amount of each ingredient.    

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I will say that it’s always better to have a little more buttercream than you expected than to not have enough. To prevent that scenario, I recommend rounding up when estimating.

*A Note on Gram Measurements: I didn’t put gram measurements on this chart because different kinds of frosting vary by weight per cup. If you’re using American Buttercream (like most of my recipes), then you can go with the gram measurement of 1 Cup = 215g and scale the recipe from there.

Round Cakes
Size of CakeNumber of LayersFilling + Crumb CoatFrostingTotal
4-In2½ Cup½ Cup1 Cup
4-In31 Cup1 Cup2 Cups
6-In21 ½ Cups 1 ½ Cups 3 Cups
6-In32 ½ Cups2 ½ Cups 5 Cups 
7-In21 ¾ Cups1 ¾ Cups3 ½ Cups
7-In32 ¾ Cups2 ¾ Cups5 ½ Cups
8-In22 Cups2 ½ Cups4 ½ Cups 
8-In33 Cups3 Cups6 Cups
9-In22 ½ Cups2 ½ Cups5 Cups
9-In33 ½ Cups3 Cups6 ½ Cups
10-In23 Cups2 ½ Cups5 ½ Cups
10-In34 Cups3 Cups7 Cups
12-In24 ½ Cups3 ½ Cups8 Cups
12-In35 Cups4 ½ Cups9 ½ Cups
14-In25 ½ Cups6 Cups11 ½ Cups
14-In37 Cups6 ½ Cups13 ½ Cups
Other Cake Sizes
Square CakesAdd 1 Cup to the grand total above (or ½ Cup to the filling/crumb coating amount and ½ Cup to the frosting amount)
9×13-In3 Cups
Buttercream Borders (for 6 or 8 inch cakes)
TypeTotal Amount
Star Border1 Cup
Swirl Border1 ½ Cups
Braided Border1 ½ Cups
Rope Border2 Cups
Cupcakes (Per Dozen)
Style of FrostingTotal
Iced with a spatula1 ½ Cups
Piped into a tall swirl2 ½ Cups
Piped as a rosette2 Cups

I hope that you find this chart and info helpful for your cake planning! Let me know in the comments if you do and feel free to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram to show me what you make! I always love to see what you create.

By: Whitney · In: FAQ, Featured · Tagged: buttercream, faq, frosting, how much buttercream, how much frosting, scaling recipes

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Comments

  1. Natalie says

    May 10, 2023 at 8:28 pm

    This is such a HUGE help!!! Tysm!!

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      May 10, 2023 at 8:39 pm

      Yay, Natalie! I’m so happy to help!

      Reply
  2. Donna says

    June 4, 2023 at 10:37 pm

    Whitney, Your calculated measurements are terrific! Appreciate you so much.

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      June 9, 2023 at 9:11 am

      So happy to help, Donna!

      Reply
  3. Cree says

    July 12, 2023 at 12:58 pm

    How much buttercream do I use for #100 cupcakes? How do I make this much up..

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      July 16, 2023 at 1:40 pm

      Hi there! According to the chart in this post, you’ll need to make about 7x any of my buttercream recipes for 100 cupcakes. In other words, you’ll need to multiply each ingredient by 7. Hope that helps!

      Reply
  4. Terri says

    September 16, 2023 at 8:49 am

    Thank you! I’m using your guide to fill and frost a wedding cake . Does this chart account for the filling as well as the outside of the cake ? Sorry if I missed that part.

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      September 16, 2023 at 9:46 pm

      Hi Terri! Yes, the “total” column of the chart includes filling and crumb coat + final coat of frosting. Hope it helps!

      Reply
  5. Tambi Sweet says

    September 28, 2023 at 7:28 am

    The boarder chart is for what size cake?

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      October 3, 2023 at 9:52 pm

      Hi Tambi! It’s based on a 6 to 8 inch cake. I’ll add that to the chart!

      Reply
  6. Charlie Woodside says

    October 19, 2023 at 4:10 am

    Love your site, so much info that others lack. One question, can I use any basic cake recipe for cupcakes. I’m interested in the Black cake and buttercream ones?

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      October 26, 2023 at 8:41 pm

      Hi Charlie! Yes, you can use any of my cake recipes for cupcakes (buttercream as well!). Here’s how to make my cake recipes as cupcakes: https://sugarandsparrow.com/convert-cake-recipes-to-cupcakes/

      Reply
  7. Denise says

    October 19, 2023 at 10:40 am

    I’m making a 7” base Barbie dress cake (for the first time) with a 2 layer 10” cake under it. I want to completely cover both with rosettes. Dress is one color, base another color.
    How many batches of your vanilla buttercream will I need?

    Reply
    • Whitney says

      October 26, 2023 at 8:39 pm

      Hi Denise! I’ve never made a Barbie cake before (sounds fun!) so I’m not entirely sure but if I had to estimate I would say that two batches of vanilla buttercream should be enough to cover both the 7″ dress portion and the 10″ cake portion. If you’re filling the cakes with the buttercream as well, you’ll need one more additional batch. Hope that helps!

      Reply

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