7 Store-Bought Frosting Brands, Ranked Worst To Best

Despite being a prolific home baker, I rely on store-bought products quite frequently. Boxed brownie mixes, cake mixes, and the like are staples in my pantry. But there is one product in particular I'll admit that I've never before used as a store-bought shortcut: canned frosting. That's not to say I've never had it before; it's been slathered on cupcakes I've enjoyed at many childhood bowling alley birthdays and middle school bake sales. There are few things on the face of the Earth sweeter than it, and its slightly gritty, sandy texture and (usually) copious amounts of food dye can make it a turnoff for some people. But if you lack the supplies, time, or skills to make frosting yourself, it can definitely come in handy — provided you select the best one your local grocery store has to offer. 

I've always wondered if it was possible to mimic the same creamy texture of a quality homemade frosting in a canned product, which is why I set out to sample and rank as many canned frosting brands as I could find. I tried two flavors from each brand — chocolate and vanilla — and assessed each product's overall mouthfeel, flavor, and sweetness by eating it straight from the spoon. I also considered the brand's other flavor offerings and price when deciding how to rank them.

Miss Jones Baking Co. is a brand that you may not be entirely familiar with, since it's hidden within the natural foods section of the grocery store. Despite being a smaller brand, it carries more frostings than some of the others on this list, including Baker's Corner and Great Value. You'll find cans of vanilla, chocolate, cream cheese, and Confetti Pop touting the organic label, among other nutrition claims. However, you'd be better off staying away from this brand at all costs. 

First, the price. My local Walmart carried only the chocolate flavor, so I had to make a special trip to a more expensive store to buy a can of vanilla frosting, which was priced $3 more than every brand on this list. Miss Jones was also a little stingy on the product, seeing as each of these cans only came about three-quarters of the way full with frosting. Granted, some brands like Pillsbury and Duncan Hines may have aerated their products to make it seem like I was getting more, and the cans were about the same size and weight. Regardless, the underfilled container should be concerning to any consumer, especially when factoring in its premium price tag. 

Miss Jones' shtick is that its organic frostings are made without hydrogenated oils and artificial flavors. But boy oh boy, did I miss those hydrogenated oils. The chocolate frosting tasted more like coconut oil than icing, and none of the vanilla frosting's flavors were prominent or noticeable. While neither had a gritty texture, their contents lacked the proper volume and spreadability of the higher-ranked frostings on this list. It's about as bad a canned frosting as you can get, earning the brand a spot at the bottom of the list.

Oh golly, Miss Dolly. I've tried many of the Queen of Country's products before, as she has endorsed an extensive lineup of Duncan Hines items, including muffin, cake, and brownie mixes. However, this was my first time sampling her frostings. Compared to many of the baking giants on this list, Dolly keeps it simple with four flavors: chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and strawberry. I was honestly surprised to see that the Dolly Parton's Favorites lineup didn't include a cream cheese frosting, seeing as it's a staple for Southern cakes.

The Creamy Buttercream (which I had to sample since no stores in my area stocked the Creamy Vanilla) was adequate, though I don't think it would fool anyone into thinking it was a homemade buttercream. The flavor had a little more depth than the other vanilla frostings I sampled, but that buttery essence was more in line with butter extract than real butter. It's what you'd expect to get from a tray of store-bought cupcakes, especially with that greasy, stale mouthfeel that comes after the waves of butteriness dissipate. 

The chocolate was a slight improvement on the flavor front, but dare I say it was too dark and silky for my liking? It was almost like the texture of brownie batter and much heavier than every other brand I sampled. It would drown out a cupcake without question. The other odd thing I noticed about the chocolate frosting was that it had subtle coconut notes on the back end, though it was more like coconut milk than coconut oil. Luckily, the mouthfeel wasn't as greasy as the buttercream, and I scored it above Miss Jones because both flavors spread more easily on my knife. 

Great Value's products tend to fall into one of two extremes: really great or really awful — the latter of which, more often than not, I've found to be the case. I had a hunch that this was going to be yet another Great Value product worth leaving out of the cart, but I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't the worst brand I sampled. 

That said, Great Value's chocolate and vanilla frosting still pale in comparison to other name brands on this list. Aside from its squeeze tubes of cookie icing (which make decorating a breeze), it sells three types of frosting: vanilla, chocolate, and cream cheese. It might seem like slim pickings, but you can always improve store-bought frosting by adding in food coloring, spices, or chunky additions. And based on my experience with Walmart's chocolate and vanilla frostings, you're going to need to do some work to get them up to snuff. 

The vanilla frosting was very sweet, so much so that I had a little bite of it on the knife and had to put the can down. While I was glad it didn't have the same overtly greasy mouthfeel as Duncan Hines Dolly Parton's buttercream, I would have liked to see a less artificial and cloying flavor. However, if you use a light (emphasis on light) schmear on a cupcake, I doubt it would make the bite too sweet. The chocolate icing, meanwhile, is exactly what I expected from a store-bought canned icing in terms of texture and flavor. It's very fudgy, so if you don't like chocolate, you'd be better off looking elsewhere. It's definitely not as cloying as the vanilla, and I imagine it would be quite tasty on a Texas sheet cake.

Duncan Hines is a trusted brand in my household. I swear by its chocolate cake mix, but like many of the other brands on this list, the thought of buying its store-bought frosting never crossed my mind. Compared to Betty Crocker and Pillsbury, its selection is much more limited. However, that doesn't mean you only have one option to choose from. It covers the basics, including the Creamy Vanilla and Creamy Chocolate I tried for this ranking, and branches out into more niche varieties, such as lemon, strawberries and cream, cream cheese, and whipped frosting. And as I quickly learned with this ranking, quality always matters over quantity. 

The vanilla flavor was up first. It had a slightly more stable consistency than the brand ranked above it, which leads me to believe this store-bought frosting could be piped onto a cake. However, after I took a bite of this frosting, I could see why this was the case: The sugariness was relentless. I had maybe half a teaspoon before I had to put the can down, like with Great Value. There was no subtle tang or flavor to counteract its heaviness and sweetness, and I felt myself tasting this frosting for hours after I sampled it. I couldn't imagine eating an entire cupcake covered in it. 

The Creamy Chocolate Frosting, though, is where it's at. The only drawback I could find with it was that it had a slightly gritty texture, which clearly makes it taste store-bought rather than homemade. The flavor is fudgy like Great Value, but it's easier to spread and has a slightly airier mouthfeel, making it more pleasant to eat and earning it a higher spot on this list. 

Aldi is and will always be my go-to grocery store. As long as I'm not shopping for unique or niche ingredients or brands, chances are I can find what I'm looking for in the aisles of the discount grocer. As you would expect from a store with limited SKUs, it doesn't have nearly the same frosting selection as brands like Pillsbury and Betty Crocker. Baker's Corner, one of Aldi's in-house brands, carries three types of cake frosting: vanilla, chocolate, and cream cheese. Its cans are priced much lower than some of the premium brands I sampled for this ranking, which is reason enough to add them to your cart. 

I wanted to put this Aldi-branded product in the top spot because it was so inexpensive and really not that bad. It held its shape better than Duncan Hines (arguably too much, as it could chew up a cake if it wasn't properly fluffed before frosting), and it wasn't as oppressively sweet. However, the vanilla flavor had a very prominent, artificial sweetener-like taste that became bitter after a few bites. The chocolate frosting didn't have the same flavor per se, though its chocolatiness came across more like a bitter dark chocolate than an approachable milk or fudgy variety. The mouthfeel was equally gritty and still sweet. The brands that ranked higher than Baker's Corner just had a more consistent spread and better texture overall — though if you're slathering either of these Aldi frostings on a kid's birthday cake, I don't think you're going to get any complaints. 

Betty Crocker is a prominent name in the baking aisle. The brand covers cake and brownie mixes and even sells a frosting mix that just requires boiling water. But this time, I wasn't adding any of its boxes to my cart; I was instead making a beeline for its impressive selection of frostings. If you can name a frosting flavor, Betty Crocker has it. From Rainbow Chip and coconut pecan to lemon and whipped variations of classic favorites, Betty has it all. So it seemed like a little bit of a cop-out that I was buying its most "vanilla" offerings: Vanilla Rich & Creamy and Chocolate Rich & Creamy Frosting. 

This frosting was incredibly easy to spread, so I don't know why Betty Crocker would need to make an even more spreadable whipped version of it. I started with the chocolate frosting, which didn't boast anywhere near the same chocolate flavor as Great Value. While the sweet flavor was more pronounced than the chocolate, I appreciate that this frosting could be paired with lightly flavored baked goods and cakes and not overwhelm them.

The vanilla frosting was sweeter than the chocolate, but not as sweet as Great Value's vanilla frosting, which earned the brand a slightly higher spot on this list. However, I did notice that this frosting had almost a cornstarch-like aftertaste. It was slightly sour, which helped offset the sweetness, and it toed the line of being cream cheese adjacent. If I needed to pick up a frosting in a pinch, I would definitely buy either one of these cans again, though the odd aftertaste would make me more likely to reach for the brand I ranked higher.

It honestly seemed a little odd that I was going to a grocery store to buy Pillsbury frosting and not picking up a can of its most well-known flavor: Funfetti. Interestingly enough, The J.M. Smucker Company owns the Funfetti trademark, though General Mills-owned Pillsbury is usually the one associated with the sprinkle-infused concoction. Regardless, I decided to keep it fair here and stick to Pillsbury's Creamy Supreme Chocolate Fudge and Creamy Supreme Vanilla Frosting in my review.

The brand has the largest frosting selection of any I sampled for this ranking. I'm talking 10 colorful variations of Funfetti, six types of whipped frosting, zero-sugar frosting, and even seasonal frosting that's perfect for Halloween cakes or Christmas sugar cookies. That doesn't even include its plethora of classic flavors, which run the gamut from staples like vanilla and chocolate fudge to salted caramel, coffee, and coconut pecan. 

Pillsbury wasn't lying when it labeled its frosting as "Chocolate Fudge." It's heavy, dense, and decadent in all the best ways. I liked that it had the fudgy mouthfeel of Great Value but with the lightness and spreadability of Duncan Hines. Another big selling point was its subtle sourness, which helped distract from the sweetness and mellow out its body. I could see myself spreading this on a sheet cake, sticking a couple of candles in it, and celebrating almost any occasion. Pillsbury's Vanilla Frosting was equally tame — at least as far as sweetness goes. It is almost like a cream cheese frosting but without milky undertones or pronounced tang. It didn't have the same starchy aftertaste as Betty Crocker, ultimately earning it the title of the best store-bought frosting brand. 

I went into this ranking with the assumption that store-bought frostings would not taste the same as what I would make at home. So the basis for my ranking was really based on which brand came the closest to homemade frosting in terms of texture, flavor, and overall spreadability.

I chose to sample two cans from each brand — chocolate and vanilla — since those flavors are practically universal in the canned frosting world. In order to remain objective, I tasted each frosting straight from a spoon, enduring the subsequent sugar rush while looking for any grittiness or unpleasant flavors. Since most people probably aren't eating frosting straight from the can, I considered which brand offered a product that could be easily spread on cakes or cupcakes. The most versatile frostings with the best texture and most well-balanced flavors landed at the top of my ranking.