Fluffy and sweet American buttercream flavored with black cocoa powder to make the most intense, luscious black cocoa frosting. It’s whipped with heavy whipping cream to give it a lighter texture than expected!

I just thought that all my black cocoa cake recipes deserved a frosting to go with it. You can use it on my OG Black Cocoa Cake but I used it on my Fluffy Black Cocoa Cupcakes and my Black Cocoa Sheet Cake. You could even frost my BEST Black Cocoa Brownies,

In case you were wondering what black cocoa powder tastes like, it’s still a cocoa powder so obviously like chocolate but it just has that distinct flavor that you find in Oreos. It’s slightly more bitter and earthy but in a good way? Idk, I love it though.

How To Make Black Cocoa Frosting, Step-by-Step Photos

Black Cocoa Frosting

Beat the butter with the whisk attachment until it’s pale, fluffy and creamy looking.
Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, salt and vanilla bean paste and turn the mixer to LOW speed just until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the speed to medium-high until the sugar is mixed in well.
Stream in the heavy whipping cream slowly with the mixer on low speed or in 4-5 increments, stopping to scrape the edge of the bowl each time so it all gets mixed in. Use a rubber spatula to smooth the frosting out a little when it’s done.
Spread the frosting onto the cooled cake.

cocoa powder beat into frosting — butter beat with sugar

Expert Tips On Getting Perfect Black Cocoa Frosting

There’s a few things you can do to make sure your frosting is perfect.

Weigh your ingredients with a digital scale
Make sure the butter is at room temperature (NOT SOFT) – it should be malleable but not at all greasy.
I use cold heavy cream but I stream it in really slowly so it doesn’t split the buttercream – use room temperature cream if you’re worried about it splitting.

How To Use Black Cocoa Frosting

Black cocoa frosting can be used however you want…literally, it’s just frosting lol. It is quite sweet in my opinion since I used an American buttercream base so I prefer to pair it with something less sweet like my black cocoa cake recipes or anything that would involve espresso or a tart fruit.

The texture is light when it’s at room temperature so I recommend using it to frost anything that is best served at room temperature. For instance, I don’t think it would pair well with some sponge cakes because they’re too light textured for American buttercream (in my opinion) and the frosting would severely overpower it.

However, it works well on any cupcake, traditional creamed cake, oil based cakes, brownies, cookies, etc.

Some fabulous recipes you could replace the frosting with black cocoa frosting:

The truth is you could pretty much replace cocoa powder in any frosting recipe (not in any baking recipe lol) with black cocoa powder. So if you prefer a less sweet version of this, use my Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe or my French Buttercream recipe and just add the black cocoa powder in at the end!

slice of black cocoa sheet cake on a cutting board

I haven’t looked back since using black cocoa for my cakes and cupcakes and I hope you don’t either! I can’t wait to make an ice cream or a pudding with it next!

If you have any questions, please comment down below – those will get answered much quicker than email or through social media.

If you’ve tried this, I would very much appreciate a star rating or review as well.

As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!

Love, B

Black Cocoa Frosting (No Food Coloring!)

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Total Time 1 40

Course Cupcakes

Cuisine American

Servings servings

Calories 229 kcal

Equipment