7-Minute Frosting (Foolproof Recipe)
This foolproof 7-Minute Frosting is a classic for a reason. It’s light, fluffy, easy to spread, and the perfect topping for just about any cake. Old-fashioned and never out of style, its smooth, marshmallow-like texture is sure to make you, your family, and your friends smile!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: 7-Minute Frosting
- Ready In: 7 minutes
- Serves: 4
- Calories: 278 cal
- Main Ingredients: 1 cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, 2 Egg whites, 3 tablespoons water, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Why You'll Love It: This failproof 7-minute frosting recipe is a light, smooth, and fluffy cake topping like marshmallow cream that melts in your mouth.
Light and Fluffy 7-Minute Frosting
If you’ve never had this old-fashioned frosting, you’ve been missing out! This recipe has been a timeless favorite since the early 1900s, and it’s easy to see why. It’s fluffy, glossy, and light-tasting icing reminiscent of meringue… only better and spreadable!
Growing up, I had it atop my grandmama’s coconut cake and my Aunt Sue’s famous pound cake, and boy, oh boy, it was always a treat!
There are many reasons to love this recipe, but most importantly, it’s quick to make, easy to spread, and doesn’t include a double boiler like so many others. It comes out perfect every time, so if you’re a beginner baker looking for a foolproof frosting recipe, you’re in the right place!
I’d recommend watching our quick video tutorial before you start your recipe so that you can get a nice visual!
Reader Rating
“Love love this recipe! My grandmother made this same recipe long time ago and it’s a family favorite!” – Julia
Recipe Ingredients
- Sugar
- 2 eggs (for the whites only)
- Cream of tartar (don’t substitute!)
- Salt
- Vanilla
Want to Jazz Up Your Frosting? Try These Ideas
- Use brown sugar instead of white sugar.
- Fold about 3 ounces of melted chocolate chips into the finished frosting. You want both products to be at the same temperature.
- Use a different extract flavor instead of vanilla, such as peppermint or almond.
- You can also torch the frosting like you would with this coffee pie with meringue.
How to Make 7 Minute Frosting
1. Add Ingredients to a Pot
Start by adding your sugar to a thick-bottomed sauce pot.
Pro tip: You’ll want to use a good stainless steel pot for this. Definitely not one with a nonstick coating, because we are going to beat it for several minutes and all that mess would flake off and get in your icing – so don’t do that!
Next, add the salt, then the cream of tartar and the egg whites.
Pro tip: When separating your eggs, do it in a separate bowl first. The icing won’t turn out if even a little bit of yolk gets mixed in with the whites. This way, if a yolk breaks, you won’t have to waste all your ingredients.
Finally, add the water. We don’t add the vanilla extract until the end.
2. Heat & Beat
Place this mixture over medium-low heat (about a 4 on my stove) and then turn the electric mixer on.
Beat this constantly for about 5 to 7 minutes, or until sugar dissolves and stiff peaks form.
A word of caution
Right now, you might be thinking, “Okay, this is crazy. This is never going to form stiff peaks. I’m sure this is as good as it will get. I might as well give up and just ice the cake.”
Don’t! This is one of those recipes that must be followed to the letter. If you go rogue, you get rogue results. Maybe they’ll be good, maybe they’ll be bad, but they won’t be on me. Stick with it, I promise it’ll work.
Look! We have stiffness! You can see how the frosting reaches and maintains the trail left by the beaters rather than sliding back into a glop. This is what we want.
3. Fold in the Vanilla
Now add in your vanilla extract and fold it in. Maintain that perfect trail left by the beaters and keep any icing from sliding back down to smooth. Remove this from the heat and have a little taste of it – pure marshmallow heaven.
Ice your cake with this 7-minute frosting, and you’re good to go.
Oh my goodness, how light and fluffy does that look?
If you’re looking for other foolproof frosting recipes, check out my creamy chocolate frosting or royal icing recipe.
Does this frosting need to be refrigerated?
No, you don’t need to refrigerate this frosting! I’ve found that a cake frosted with this recipe will be perfectly fine covered on the counter for up to two days. After that, the frosting will start to melt into the cake. I suggest making and frosting the cake the day you are going to serve it for the best results.
7-Minute Frosting FAQs
The main difference between these frostings is that Swiss meringue buttercream is cooked, then mixed off the heat. Meanwhile, this frosting is mixed as it cooks on the stovetop.
If you just toss that granulated sugar into your egg whites, it won’t dissolve properly. You’ll end up with a gritty frosting, and nobody wants that! By taking a minute to make a simple syrup first, you ensure that sugar melts down nice and smooth, giving you that silky, fluffy frosting we’re aiming for. It’s a small step that makes a world of difference.
It’s normal for this 7-minute frosting to have tiny sugar crystals mixed amid the fluffy velvet cream. This is part of the frosting’s texture, so don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong! The crystals add to its unique, fluffy, velvet-cream consistency. Just close your eyes and enjoy the smoothness of this marshmallow fluff-like icing as it melts in your mouth.
Did you try this 7-minute frosting? I’d love to hear how it turned out for you! Please share your experience and any sweet stories by leaving a rating and comment below.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar *do not substitute
- 2 Egg whites
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients except the vanilla in a stainless steel heavy-bottomed saucepan.1 cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, 2 Egg whites, 3 tablespoons water
- Place mixture over medium-low heat and beat with an electric hand mixer constantly for 5-7 minutes, or until icing is fluffy and stiff peaks form when the beaters are removed.
- Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Ice the cooled cake.1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Notes
- You’ll need two recipes of this icing to ice a layer cake. Fortunately, this recipe doubles beautifully, so there’s no need to make two separate batches, just double it and make it all at once.
- If you want to jazz up your frosting, here are some fun additions:
- Use brown sugar instead of white sugar.
- Fold about 3 ounces of melted chocolate chips into the finished frosting. You want both products to be at the same temperature.
- Use a different extract flavor rather than vanilla, like peppermint or almond extract.
- You can also torch the frosting like you would meringue.
Nutrition
“Peoples s’posed to be nice. That’s just the way you do things.”
~Grandmama
My mom always made this with grated apples in it. She used the double boiler method. My sister and I made this icing for a chocolate cake for my dad’s 85th birthday. He loved it!
Wonderful to hear and isn’t it great that you don’t need the double boiler!
Is it possible to make this chocolate by adding cocoa powder?
Hey folks, I have only made 7 minute icing a couple of times in my almost 65 years and that was with white Karo. This was so much easier! I was about to lose faith in it when I decided at 9 minutes in to bump up the gas a bit and bump up the mixer a big bump. That stuff was trailing in no time!!! Love it!!
So good to hear! Thanks for your comment 🙂
I tried this today and it turned out excellent other than it took 22 minutes of beating it before it finally thickened to the proper consistency.
Glad it finally got there!
I’m not sure if it’s because I am so far north, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada… But I had to mix it for 19 minutes before I got my stiff peaks! I just kept going because I was not giving up on it! In the end it worked out pretty well for my first time. And it is indeed delicious!
Hi Denise, thanks for your comment. There are a lot of variables that could contribute. The heat on a electric versus gas stove could be different, more moisture in the air could make a difference, the mixer speed may be different (my guess is this may be the culprit), size of the eggs could be different.
However it sounds like you knew what to look for, and knew to stick with it until it was the right consistency. Well done!!
Christy, I used to make this frosting ages ago and my family loved it because you could control the sweetness (they didn’t like it too sweet). Unfortunately I lost the recipe. I think it called for the same ingredients as yours except it used powered sugar instead of granulated. Can you comment on this?
Hey there, thanks for your comment. There are some concerns with using powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar due to the cornstarch that is present in the powdered sugar. I have never substituted powdered sugar in this recipe (the tiny sugar granules amidst the cream are something we like) but my guess is with this frosting recipe that powdered sugar may actually be a good stabilizing agent as the cornstarch present in it is meant to prevent clumping, you just may have a slightly different texture than what I am used to. If you try this frosting recipe with the powdered sugar, let me know how it goes.
This icing has made it into my holiday/birthday recipe book. I make a coconut cake for my mom’s birthday with this icing covered in coconut flakes. She loves it, and she is an excellent baker. It comes out EVERY TIME.