How much buttercream do you need to cover a cake?

From time to time members ask how much buttercream do you need to make up for various size cakes, number of layer fillings and covering. Since we don’t have a buttercream guide on the site, I thought it might help to put one up. This guide is just for standard buttercream based on Paul’s tutorial.

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In the tutorial, Paul adds a small amount of ganache to the buttercream to give it more structure. This is optional. However, if you would like to use the ganache as shown, it is reasonable to add 6% of the buttercream total as ganache.

As always, this is a guide. It is possible you may need to make a little more or have some left over. When I made up Paul’s quantities I had a fair amount left over so we have designed the chart around the quantity which I used. Any leftover buttercream, sealed in an airtight container, can be refrigerated for a couple of weeks or frozen for approximately three months.

Buttercream takes on tastes and smells of other food very quickly so please, do keep it well away from any funky stuff in your fridge or freezer! To learn more about Buttercream head over to the Wiki page.

How much buttercream do you need?

Looking for further cake calculators to help? Check out the full list of FREE calculators available on CakeFlix:

  • How much buttercream do you need?
  • How much ganache do you need?
  • Portion calculator
  • Recipe re-sizing calculator

They are all available via the link below:

FREE Cake Calculators

Cake calculators are helpful for several reasons:

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