Best Easy Bailey's Buttercream Frosting Recipe - Sweet Mouth Joy (2024)

Published: Aug 12, 2021 · Modified: Feb 25, 2023 by Kachina · This post may contain affiliate links.

Bailey’s buttercream frosting is perfect for adding a touch of boozy Irish cream goodness to your cakes and bakes! This creamy frosting is an American-style buttercream. It's super easy to whip up and ready in less than 15mins.

✏️ Recipe creation

I first made this Bailey's frosting for my easy Bailey’s cupcakes. It was so tasty, I wanted to be able to add it to other goodies.

It's great for topping treats for St Patrick’s Day celebrations. Personally, I love it on Guinness chocolate cupcakes or Guinness brownies! Irish cream frosting also goes great on bakes such as coffee cupcakes or Bailey's chocolate cupcakes.

This recipe is based on my classic vanilla American buttercream frosting. The heavy cream and/or milk is replaced with tasty Irish cream instead.

🥘 Ingredients

This Bailey's frosting recipe calls for the following ingredients:

• Unsalted butter: using unsalted butter lets you control the amount of salt in your buttercream.
• Powdered icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar): sieve the powdered sugar to get a smoother frosting.
• Vanilla extract: choose extract or paste over essence for best results.
• Bailey’s Irish cream liqueur (Original)
• Salt (optional)

See the recipe card for quantities.

Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.

♻️ Substitutions/Variations

Ingredient substitutions

If you don’t have the actual brand of Bailey’s Irish cream, you can use another brand of Irish cream liqueur instead.

I love using Baileys Irish cream original liqueur, but they have a whole bunch of other tasty flavours to choose from, such as the strawberries & cream or birthday cake variety.

Flavour options

I like the vanilla and Baileys flavour combo in this frosting, but you can also give them a chocolate twist. Try adding 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder to your frosting.

Vegan option

To make vegan Bailey’s frosting, you can swap the butter for a firm dairy-free butter (baking block). You must use the solid kind rather than a liquid or soft variety.

Original Bailey’s Irish cream is not vegan. However, they have dairy-free (vegan) varieties, such as a delicious Bailey’s almande flavour that you can use instead.

📖 Method

Step 1: Beat the butter for several minutes until pale and fluffy.

Steps 2 - 3: Next, sieve in half of your powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

Step 4: Repeat with the other half of your powdered sugar and beat in the Bailey’s, vanilla and salt (if using).

Spread your frosting onto cupcakes, cakes, brownies, cheesecakes and more!

💭 Top tips

• Use room temperature butter for ease of beating.
• For creamy Bailey's frosting, beat your butter until it’s pale, light and fluffy before adding your other ingredients. This could take several minutes with an electric mixer and longer by hand.
• If you’re using an electric mixer, you can sometimes get a cloud of powdered sugar kicked up into the air. To stop this, stir your sieved powdered sugar into the butter with a wooden spoon or spatula briefly before using the electric mixer again.
• If your frosting is too thick to pipe, then you can add more Bailey’s to thin the consistency of the frosting.
• If your frosting is too thin, you can try chilling it in the fridge for 10-20mins before use. Alternatively, you can beat in a few more tablespoons of butter to thicken it.

❔ Recipe FAQs

🧁 Frosting uses

Amounts

This recipe makes enough to frost roughly 10 cupcakes (regular size). Make sure you’re using cool cupcakes not ones fresh from the oven.

To frost a cake fully (outside coating and between layers), you’ll need to double this recipe (scale up by x2) for a 3-layer round 6-inch cake. For a 3-layer round 8-inch cake, triple this recipe (i.e. scale up by x3).

Depending on how sweet you like your traybakes, you’ll only need half the amount of this frosting recipe for an 8-inch square sized traybake. Spread a thick layer across your cooled traybake before cutting it into slices.

Great goodies to frost

Bailey’s frosting would go great on the following:

• Bailey’s Oreo brownies
• Triple chocolate brownies
• Gluten-free moist chocolate cupcakes
• Victoria sponge cake

🍪 Other goodies

Looking for some other goodies to make?

Love Baileys Irish cream? Check out some of my favourite Bailey’s dessert recipes - Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake, Bailey’s Oreo brownies, Bailey's red velvet swirl brownies or Bailey’s cupcakes.

If you’re a fan of boozy bakes, then check out my recipes for spiced orange rum brownie cookies, Tequila Rose GF white chocolate cake or salted rum dulce de leche sauce.

For other great frosting ideas, take a look at my best baileys ganache, matcha buttercream or white chocolate lemon no-cream ganache recipes.

Other related recipes:

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📋 Recipe