The Trick to Making Canned Frosting Taste Homemade (We Won’t Tell!)

Canned frosting is undeniably convenient, but it simply doesn’t hold a candle to homemade frosting. Common critiques of store-bought frosting include tasting too sweet, lacking a light, fluffy texture, and having a strong artificial flavor (or not enough flavor in general).

For these reasons, I reserve canned frosting for emergency situations only. Luckily, when this occurs, I have a few handy tricks up my sleeve that have allowed me to upgrade the convenience product so it tastes almost as good as homemade.

How to Make Canned Frosting Less Sweet

The most common complaint of canned frosting is that it tastes far too sweet. To temper the sugary-ness, all you need is a stick of butter. 

Simply transfer the frosting and butter (one stick per can) to the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl if using an electric hand mixer). To ensure the butter blends smoothly into the frosting, make sure it’s softened at room temperature.

Next, beat the butter into the frosting until smooth and homogenous. You can use salted or unsalted butter for this hack. If using unsalted, I recommend adding about one-quarter teaspoon of salt to the mixture to help balance the flavors.

Another ingredient that works similarly to butter is plain, softened cream cheese. It also helps reduce the sweetness of canned frosting while adding richness and tang. I especially love using it with canned chocolate and strawberry frostings.

How to Make Canned Frosting Taste Homemade

Whether you want to make canned frosting taste less artificial or have a stronger, richer flavor, it can be done. My secret is to beat a couple of teaspoons of high-quality vanilla extract or paste into it. Adding just a bit of real vanilla goes a long way toward improving the flavor of canned frosting and can help mask any fake or chemical flavors.

Vanilla extract is great for vanilla, cream cheese, and chocolate frosting. However, I’ll often turn to other extracts and flavorings, depending on the canned frosting I’m using. Almond extract is a delicious upgrade for vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or cherry canned frostings. I’ve also added espresso powder and cold brew concentrate to canned chocolate frosting to intensify the chocolate flavor. Don’t be afraid to experiment; the risk usually pays off big time in the flavor department.

How to Improve the Texture of Canned Frosting

This final flaw of canned frosting is usually improved as you work through the two issues above, when the frosting is beaten with the butter and extracts in the bowl of a stand mixer. The beater helps incorporate air into the frosting, giving it a loftier, cloud-like, whipped consistency. That said, you can use this trick on its own, too, even if you’re not adding butter or extracts to the canned frosting. Doing so is a great way to improve the consistency of the frosting and make it go a bit further, since whipping it increases the overall volume.

Whether you use only one or all three of these simple tricks is up to you. No matter the choice, you’re guaranteed to improve whatever canned frosting you have, taking it from lackluster to luxurious in a matter of minutes.