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Hi everyone, 

Hoping to draw on the brain's trust of EYB members. I am planning to make some Frozen themed cupcakes for my nieces birthday and was looking for buttercream recipe recomendations that have a nice texture and flavour ( not overly sweet). 

Many thanks,
Clare

Still on the search for the perfect one, so I'm following this with interest!

I don't like buttercream (too sweet) so you can take my recommendation with a pinch of salt, but I made a Chocolate bûche de Noël from Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple and the Chocolate Swiss buttercream was fabulous. It was smooth, light and not too sweet. Unfortunately the recipe is not available online though if you look through our other online recipes you may find one you like. The Stella Parks recipe on Serious Eats is probably very good - she has double the chocolate that Aran has, not necessarily a bad thing.

My childhood memories of buttercream frosting are of tooth achingly sweet frosting made from only butter, confectioner's sugar and maybe vanilla extract. A grownup's version which is a bit more involved as it calls for a doubleboiler, is Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is worth the extra effort, not too sweet and a great texture. There are several versions on line, with a variety of flavors.

100g unsalted butter and 200g sieved icing sugar blended, then approx 1 tablespoon milk to bring to spreadable texture. 
Yes it's sweet, but only intended as a thin layer, not a mound of decoration.  

Jamie has a great, not too sweet, chocolate frosting that I can confirm freezes & defrosts very well (on frosted cakes). It's in this recipe which EYB has in its online collection: click here .. happy frosting

If you are doing a Frozen theme, I assume you want a white, not chocolate frosting. 

American buttercream is tooth-achingly sweet, but it holds color and decorations better than any of the others. It's basically just powdered sugar, butter & milk.  It's the simplest to make.

French buttercream is over-the-top rich with butter and egg yolks, very soft, has a pale yellow color, and doesn't take either color or stiff decorating well.  Because of the high butter content it does not hold up in the heat.  It's also the most PITA to make of all the buttercreams.

Swiss meringue buttercream is soft, very white, light, and pretty sweet, though not as sweet as American.  It is too soft for elaborate decorations.  It's a meringue with butter beaten in. 

Italian meringue buttercream is stiffer than Swiss, but similar in color.  Also a meringue with butter added, but technique is different from Swiss.  Still kind of soft for elaborate decorating.

German Buttercream is a combination of pastry cream or custard base and butter.  It tastes similar to whipped cream, and less sweet than most buttercreams.  It must be kept chilled, especially in the summer.

Ermine Frosting, also known as Flour Buttercream, is also less sweet.  It's soft & fluffy, and spreads beautifully.  Because of the flour base, it holds up better in warmer weather. Stella Parks on Serious Eats has a good recipe. 

If I were doing Frozen themed cupcakes, I would probably frost them in a not-too-sweet Ermine Buttercream, and use American Buttercream for any fancy decorations.  Most bakery/grocery store cakes use their better tasting icings for the cake, and a powdered sugar based frosting to color & decorate.  It's a little more work to make 2, but the results are much better.

I’d definitely go with an Ermine frosting. It’s extremely stable and not very sweet or dense. I’ve used stella’s recipe, linked in a previous comment, which is a bit sweeter than some of the other random blog versions from google. I don’t have a link handy (just lost all my bookmarks 🤦‍♀️)

EYB note: link added.