This Cookies & Cream Frosting is perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and more, with a luscious Oreo Buttercream flavor, and a cream cheese frosting option as well!
Dissolve salt in milk and extract: combine milk and vanilla in a small dish. Stir in salt for 20-30 seconds to dissolve.
Crush the Oreos: place the Oreos in a well-sealed zip-top bag. Use a rolling pin, wine bottle, or can to roll back and forth over the Oreos until they’re fairly well crushed (pea-sized pieces or smaller). You can alternatively chop the cookies up on a cutting board. Beware, if you have large pieces, it will make it harder to frost your cake/cupcakes.
Beat butter: beat butter with a stand or hand mixer for 1 minute on medium speed until smooth.
Add sugar in three batches: add a third of the sifted powdered sugar to the butter and mix briefly on low to incorporate, then beat on medium-high speed for 1 minute until light and fluffy. Repeat that process with the two remaining batches of powdered sugar until all sugar has been added. The frosting should be very light and fluffy, and have significantly increased in volume (see notes).
Add in milk: add in milk mixture (be sure to scrape in the salt from the bottom of the container), and beat on low just to roughly incorporate ingredients, then medium-high for 1 minute until liquid is fully incorporated and frosting is fluffy again.
Add Oreos: mix crushed Oreos in on medium speed until evenly distributed.
Frost or chill: frost cake or cupcakes immediately if desired, or store covered in the fridge (see notes regarding color change of chilled frosting).
Notes
Soft butter: make sure your butter is properly soft for this recipe as you'll need soft, creamy butter to properly whip it into a light and fluffy buttercream. I also recommend using a higher quality butter as the flavor is really going to come through in this recipe.
Powdered Sugar Addition: when adding the last third, if needed, you can add the milk mixture as well from the next step if the final sugar isn't wanting to incorporate easily for you.
Oreo Cream Cheese Frosting: you can substitute in ½ cup cream cheese for ½ cup butter to make a Cookies and Cream Cream Cheese Frosting. In that case, you'd use ¾ cups (1 ½ stick) butter and ½ cup (half of an 8 oz brick) of cream cheese and proceed with the recipe as written.
Piping tips: be sure to use a big enough round tip that the cookie chunks can pass through when piping this frosting (the crushed cookies will clog a small piping tip or a star tip too usually). Mixing after a chill will also help more fully incorporate the cookies, create a darker base with finer crumbs, and make piping/smoothing the frosting on a cake a bit easier.
Don’t chill and remix unless you want it to be chocolate: when freshly made, this frosting still has a fairly white base, with lots of dark, chunky bits. However, if you chill it and then remix it to smooth it out again, you'll have a chocolate looking base as the cookies soften up and blend in to darken the color. Both version are delicious and taste great, but if you want a whiter-looking frosting, be sure to make the frosting right when you're going to use it without any chill time.
Big batch frosting: this recipe makes a lot of frosting. A 1X batch makes about 4 cups when whipped to full volume which is enough to frost one two-layer 8" or 9" round cake, two 9" x 13" sheet cakes, or 36-48 full-sized cupcakes depending on how generous you are with your frosting.
It’d mean so much to me if you could please give the recipe card a ⭐ rating on the site and leave a comment to help others find this sweet recipe! Xo, Jocelyn @ Mint+Mallow