My Oreo frosting takes just 5 minutes to make! It’s perfect for piping on cupcakes or cakes and is carefully designed to not be too sweet. Only 6 ingredients! Recipe includes a how-to video!
Why You’ll Love This Oreo Frosting
- Simple and fast: You only need 6 ingredients and 5 minutes to make it. It’s amazing how quick and easy this frosting is!
- Pipes beautifully: It’s sturdy and holds its shape like a traditional buttercream, which I love. It looks so pretty on cupcakes!
- Not too sweet: I use a sneaky secret ingredient to keep the frosting from being overly sweet–more on this below!
- Pairs with any flavor cake or cupcake: I especially love it on my white cake, Oreo cake, or chocolate cupcakes though.
Oreo frosting is the latest addition to my ever-growing frosting library. It’s a cookies & cream buttercream creation that works equally well piped on cupcakes as it does in macarons (or chocolate macarons).
What You Need
While I sometimes have the patience for a more complex frosting (separating and tempering eggs — I’m looking at you Swiss meringue buttercream) frostings that are straight up simple in terms of ingredients and method will always have my heart. Today’s recipe checks both those boxes, nothing fancy here, just a few basics:
- Oreo cookies. You need fewer than you might think (which leaves plenty of extras for snacking on later — or use them for some Oreo cupcakes to put the frosting on!). 6 Oreo cookies will create the ½ cup of Oreo crumbs we’ll need. I do not remove the cream, since it’s an integral part of the Oreo flavor. See my tip below on how to pulverize the cookies so you have a perfectly smooth, pipe-able frosting that won’t clog your piping tip!
- Unsalted butter. Make sure your butter is softened before you begin. If you only have salted butter on hand, feel free to use that and skip the additional salt.
- Powdered sugar. When you use the full amount of sugar I have listed in the recipe, your frosting will be nice and sturdy. If you reduce the sugar (and you certainly can!), your frosting will be softer and less inclined to hold its shape. When made as written its consistency is much like classic buttercream.
- Cream cheese. Just 4 ounces of brick-style, full-fat (this is key!) cream cheese tempers the sweetness and adds a *true* cookies and cream flavor to this frosting. While it doesn’t make the frosting taste like a straight-up cream cheese frosting, it tempers the sweetness and rounds out the flavor, all of my taste-testers preferred it to the other versions I’d tested without cream cheese.
- Vanilla extract. I use a reduced amount of vanilla extract in this recipe so the Oreo flavor can shine.
SAM’S TIP: If you plan to pipe this frosting through a piping tip, you really need to make sure your cookies are finely pulverized. If not, you will have cookie crumbs clogging your piping tip, which can be extremely frustrating! I even like to sift my crumbs after I pulverize mine, just to be safe. I use this multitool for this step, but you could also use a food processor. Crushing with a rolling pin doesn’t get the pieces quite fine enough to pipe, so if you’re using a piping tip definitely sift after crushing.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Oreo Frosting
- Cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth and combined, then gradually stir in the powdered sugar.
- Add the salt and vanilla and stir to combine.
- Stir in the Oreo cookie crumbs, then use as desired. Traditionally this will be by swirling on a dozen cupcakes or smoothly spreading over a cake, but you’ll receive absolutely no judgement from me if you just enjoy it by the spoonful.
SAM’S TIP: I find that it’s easiest to fill my piping bag (when I’m baking alone, anyway!) by placing it in a large glass or cup and folding the top of the bag over the edge of the cup. I demonstrate this in my video below, if you’d like to watch this process!
Frequently Asked Questions
Sure! Obviously the flavor of the frosting will change with the flavor of your cookies, but feel free to experiment! Mint, birthday cake, peanut butter, or even lemon Oreos would be tasty. Or you could use homemade Oreos instead (disclosure: I have not yet tried this but have been wanting to, let me know if you do! I would think you could use the shells without the filling!)!
Using the correct type of cream cheese (full-fat, brick-style) and proper amount of sugar are critical for the right texture here. Your Oreo frosting should be sturdy if you follow the recipe.
If you did follow the recipe and your frosting is still runny, the cream cheese may have just gotten too warm. Pop the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes to chill it a bit.
Absolutely! Just make sure to use the full amount of sugar listed in the recipe so your frosting is nice and sturdy. I love spreading this frosting over my vanilla cake and chocolate cake.
How do you plan to use this cookies & cream frosting in your baking? Maybe try it over my new chocolate zucchini cake?
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Oreo Frosting
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter softened
- 4 oz (113 g) cream cheese softened (use full-fat, brick-style cream cheese)
- 3 ½ cups (438 g) powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 6 (70 g) Oreo cookies pulverized to fine crumbs (or ½ cup Oreo cookie crumbs)
Recommended Equipment
- Ateco 848 tip this is what I used in the photos
Instructions
- Combine butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until smooth and creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, stirring until completely combined.¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter, 4 oz (113 g) cream cheese, 3 ½ cups (438 g) powdered sugar
- Stir in vanilla extract and salt.½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ⅛ teaspoon salt
- Add Oreo cookie crumbs and stir in until completely combined. Use as desired.6 (70 g) Oreo cookies
Notes
Yield
Recipe makes enough frosting to generously cover 12 cupcakes or one 2-layer round 8” or 9” cake or one 13×9 cake.Storing/Making in advance
Store frosting in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Let sit at room temperature until softened enough to stir, then stir well before using. Once applied to a cake or cupcake, frosting can sit out at room temperature for up to a day but otherwise should be kept refrigerated.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Gert Guillory
I’ve made this frosting twice, absolutely an amazing flavor. As always your recipes are delicious.
Sam Merritt
I’m so glad it was such a hit, Gert! 🙂
Kathee Giannini
I made this frosting to top the Oreo cookie brownie. It was incredible!
The brownie is delicious enough to stand alone, but I needed to place a “happy birthday” topper into something.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Kathee! 🙂
Stephanie
I made this frosting for my kiddo’s birthday cake and it is insanely sweet, not how it was described as not being overly sweet. It is very much an American buttercream if not sweeter in terms of sweetness. I measured it to the gram and had to sadly add to the recipe to cut back on how sugary it is. The flavor would have been lovely if it wasn’t so sweet.
Robyn
Wow!! This frosting is incredible. Tastes exactly cookies and cream ice cream. Instead of vanilla extract I used a tablespoon of vanilla bean paste. Thanks for this recipe!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Robyn! 🙂
Liz
This frosting is amazing! I’ve made it many times because my kids love Oreo everything. I just made a batch for my daughter’s birthday but she got sick and can’t eat it. I’m wondering if I can freeze this to use in a week or two?
Thanks for the great recipe!
Sam
Oh no! I hope she recovers quickly! You shouldn’t have any issues freezing this frosting. 🙂
Stephanie
OMG so good and i love the fact that you include your measurements in the instructions. nobody else i have seen does this you rock. great idea and you should get a medal for that because it makes it so much easier.
thank you
Sam
You’re welcome Stephanie! I’m so glad it was so helpful! I appreciate the feedback. 🙂
LJ Carmer
I appreciate that you use gram weights for the ingredients. It makes it so easy to replicate the delicious results!
Sam
I’m so glad it’s helpful! 🙂
Rob Chlebicki
Hi Sam,
With this recipe, do you incorporate the center of the oreo cookie or just the cookie part?
Sam
Hi Rob! I use the whole cookie, so yes I do incorporate the center. Enjoy!
Lynnea
thank you! This recipe is AWESOME!! What number piping tip do you use?
thanks,
Lynnea
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Lynnea! I use an Ateco 848 in the pictures. 🙂
Dorothy
Made this frosting for Devil’s food cupcakes (box mix) for Thanksgiving. I was told they were “The bomb”. The frosting is what made them delicious. Thanks!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Dorothy! 🙂
Bella
This tastes so good!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Bella! 🙂
Jill
I’d eat this frosting with a spoon. 🙂
Sam
You could get yourself in trouble that way! 🤣