This Flag buttercream board is a sweet patriotic dessert board filled with favorite cookies, strawberries, blueberries, and silky smooth homemade buttercream.
Unlock a gorgeous buttercream board that you can make for special occasions or national holidays. A buttercream board with strawberries and blueberries is an easy Flag Frosting Board but you can use a buttercream board and dress it as you wish for any other celebration.
This recipe comes together in less than 10 minutes and there is no baking or cooking involved. It is fun, buttery, versatile, and most importantly, perfect for a movie night, Christmas, and a 4th July celebration.
Gina’s Recipe Rundown:
Texture: Rich, creamy, and perfectly sweet—this Buttercream Board is a dreamy spread of silky frosting paired with cookies, fruits, and treats for dipping.
Taste: It is all about silky, smooth swirls of frosting with a soft, creamy texture that melts in your mouth. Paired with crunchy cookies, crisp fruits, and fluffy cake bites, it’s a playful mix of textures in every bite!
Ease: This Buttercream Board is surprisingly easy to make—just whip up your favorite frosting, spread or pipe it onto a board, and add cookies, fruit, and fun dippers. No baking required, and perfect for last-minute entertaining!
Why I love it: I love this Buttercream Board because it’s creative, customizable, and always a crowd-pleaser. It turns simple ingredients into a show-stopping dessert that’s fun to make and even more fun to eat—perfect for parties, birthdays, or just because!
What Is A Buttercream Board?
Buttercream board is a type of dessert board (like a sweet charcuterie board) where butter or buttercream is spread over a large board and the dippers, fruits, berries, and nuts are laid out around so guests can grab them and dip in the cream in the center.
It is a perfect finger food idea for a party or gathering to share snacks with friends and family.
Why Frosting Board Is Perfect For Fourth of July Celebration
- Minimal effort – 10 minutes to assemble, for max stunning result.
- Easy to customize: you can add any sweet or savory dippers, use food coloring instead of fresh berries to draw the flag
- My recipe comes with a printable flag template to make sure you have the perfect American flag frosting board.
- Fun to make with kids and family, from choosing what cookies to add, to piping the frosting.
- Something different from classic charcuterie boards. Buttercream board is a mix between an appetizer and a dessert.
Ingredients & Decorations You’ll Need
For my 4th July Flag Buttercream board I use only 4 ingredients to make the buttercream, strawberries, blueberries, and a few dippers. The buttercream we are about to make is exactly like the cake frosting, so if you have your own original recipe, you can use it too.
Note, this is a dessert board so it is served with dippers, berries, fruit, and cookies that go well with sweet cream.
Buttercream Frosting
Feel free to use any store-bought frosting, I make buttercream from scratch for this recipe, it takes just a few minutes.
- Confectioner’s sugar and butter are two basic ingredients to make buttercream dipping. You can use powdered sugar instead as well, but not granulated sugar.
- Unsalted butter softened. As we are making a sweet dessert board, unsalted butter is best to not oversalt. The butter should soften at room temperature to mix well and make a smooth white frosting.
- Salt to highlight the sweetness of vanilla and sugar.
- Vanilla extract for subtle flavoring and sweetness. It can be substituted with any extract you love: almond, coconut, mint, or something more citrusy – options are endless.
Optional – food coloring. You can customize the board for any occasion, simply add food coloring to the buttercream recipe. For ex., purple or black frosting for Halloween, orange for Thanksgiving, green for St Patrick’s, pink for birthday, etc.
Dipper Ideas
- Sweet: Oreos, Rice Krispie treats, wafer cookies, sugar cookies, Nilla Wafers, chocolate squares, peanut butter cookies, hot tamales candies, marshmallows, and graham crackers are some great dippers.
- Fresh fruit slices like apples or pears.
- Savory: pretzels or pretzel sticks, salty crackers, bread sticks, etc.
Buttercream Board Decoration For The Flag (4th July) Dessert Board
- Strawberries – cut into ¼ inch pieces (strips), full cup.
- Blueberries, half a cup.
You can use any fruit or berries you’d like. I use these berries for the 4th of July Board as they match perfectly the colors of the American flag, and fresh strawberries dipped in the buttercream frosting are incredibly yummy! - Optional, buttercream toppings: chocolate chips or shavings, coconut flakes, sliced almonds, candies, cookie crumble, and sprinkles in holiday-themed colors for sweet boards. For the Flag frosting board, you can use white sprinkles to make the stars on the flag.
Equipment
- A stand mixer or electric hand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment is used to whip the dipping
- A piping bag fitted with a large star tip to make a nice spread of the frosting on the board. You can use a wooden spoon or an offset spatula to make a flatter spread. No piping bags? Cut a corner of a ziploc bag!
- Serving board to assemble the snack board. For the 4th July butterboard, I use a rectangular wooden board, but for other occasions, it can be any shape. There are also tray options for sale that have a space in the middle for the dip.
How To Make The Buttercream
- Combine half of the sugar with the rest of the buttercream ingredients (softened butter, salt, and vanilla), in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a regular mixing bowl if you use a hand mixer. Stir on low speed until combined.
- Increase the speed to medium and beat the mixture until fluffy – scraping the sides as needed.
- Add the remaining confectioner’s sugar, mixing on low until combined and then increasing to high to whip and aerate to a fluffy consistency. (If the frosting appears too dry, add a splash of milk and mix again)
- Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
How To Make a Fourth of July Frosting Board
If you are making this for a patriotic holiday to celebrate Independence Day:
- Print the flag PDF that I’ve included and place it under a piece of parchment paper. You could free-hand if you want, but we like to keep the lines straight to know which rows get the strawberries, etc.
- Using a piping bag or a zip-top bag, pipe the frosting in rows on the parchment paper for the red and white stripes of the flag (leaving the blue left top corner empty for now).
- Line the strawberries horizontally starting from the top of the flag, leaving the white stripes visible and empty of any decoration. Stripes should begin and end with red, alternating 13 rows of red and white. Cut the strawberries, if needed to fit nicely in the rows.
- Pipe the frosting over the top left corner of the flag. This entire area gets covered in a single layer of blueberries. Try to size them up to fit the area nicely.
- Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve the board.
- When ready to serve, place your desired variety of dippers all around the frosting board, including Oreos, Nilla Wafers, yogurt-covered pretzels, chocolate squares, shortbread cookies, salty pretzels, etc.
Storage
Frosting leftovers should be stored in the fridge in an airtight container (or covered) for 2 weeks or frozen for 2 months.
You can make this buttercream board 1 day ahead. If making a frosting board ahead of time, wait to place the strawberries as they will begin to seep juice into the frosting over time.
Assembled board is best to consume without a few hours, but can stay in the fridge covered for 2 days.
Variations
- To make this board vegan and gluten-free, you can use store-bought vegan buttercream frosting and pick gluten-free Oreos and other treats that have a zero-gluten version.
- If you have time and are willing to go the extra mile, you can make star-shaped cookies, patriotic-colored cookies, or mini cupcakes with patriotic frosting for this board.
- Another red berry that can easily substitute strawberries in the flag is raspberries! Delicious and sweet.
Helpful Tips For Making Buttercream Boards
- Make sure you have enough space in the fridge to chill the whole board flat until the guests come.
- My recipe is making one board that can serve as an appetizer/dessert for a party of up to 16 people. If you have more people coming, I would rather make two separate boards so everyone can easily access all the dippers, and it is less messy.
- Use dippers that aren’t too crumbly to avoid “contaminating” the frosting too much. While pound cake is delicious, it can leave crumbs in the cream that the next guest may not be a fan of. An alternative way to do it is to add some spoons next to the board, so if there is something cakey and flaky, everyone can use a spoon to scoop some frosting.
- Adding heavy cream to the buttercream mixture will make a silkier, creamier spread.
- For easier clean-up, line the board with parchment paper before spreading the buttercream or serve the frosting in small bowls.
- Last-minute guests? Use store-bought buttercream icing and whichever other treats you have that work for dippers.
- If the frosting is too watery, add more confectioner sugar and mix for longer. If the buttercream is too thick you can try and thin it with a splash of milk or use heavy cream to begin with.
- You can assemble Flag buttercream board without berries at all if you don’t have them. You can easily use blue and red food coloring to color buttercream and spread it according to the steps.
- If you’re not making it for the 4th of July, simply prepare the buttercream, pipe the frosting onto your serving board, fill the board with fruit, cookies, or candies as desired, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Popular Questions
What Can I Use Instead Of Buttercream?
Yes! You can replace buttercream with flavored butter (with chives, bacon, black garlic, etc) for a savory board, or with cream cheese frosting for a dessert board.
Can I Make This Dessert For Other Occasions?
Yes! Buttercream board is very versatile, using food coloring, different toppings, and layout you can use it for other patriotic national holidays, birthday parties, Christmas, or Thanksgiving.
If you love this treat board recipe, you’re going to love these other charcuterie ideas, too. Please click each link below to find the easy, printable recipe!
Try it with these other frosting recipes
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
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Buttercream Board
Ingredients
- 3 cups confectioner’s sugar – divided
- 1 cup butter softened – unsalted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup strawberries – cut into ¼ inch pieces – strips
- ½ cup blueberries
SERVE
Oreos, pretzels, wafer cookies, sugar cookies, Nilla Wafers, chocolate squares, graham crackers, etc.
Instructions
- Combine half of the confectioner’s sugar, with the softened butter, salt, and vanilla, in the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir on low until combined.
- Increase the speed to medium and beat until fluffy – scraping the sides as needed.
- Add the remaining confectioner’s sugar, mixing on low until combined and then increasing to high to whip and aerate to a fluffy consistency. (If the frosting appears too dry, add a splash of milk and mix again)
- Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
- Pipe the frosting onto your serving board.
- Arrange the fruit, cookies, or candies as desired.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve.
If you are making this for a patriotic holiday –
- Print out and place the flag PDF (included) under a piece of parchment paper. You could free-hand if you want, but we like to keep the lines straight to know which rows get the strawberries, etc.
- Pipe straight rows of frosting on the parchment for the red and white stripes of the flag (leaving the blue corner empty for now).
- Starting at the top – begin placing the strawberries in a line horizontally, leaving the white stripes visible and empty of any decoration. The stripes should begin and end with red, alternating 13 rows of red and white. Cut the strawberries, if needed to fit nicely in the rows.
- Pipe the remaining corner of the flag. This entire area gets covered in a single layer of blueberries. Try to size them up to fit the area nicely.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve.
SERVE
- Place your desired variety of dippers all around the frosting board, including: Oreos, Nilla Wafers, chocolate squares, pretzels, etc.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information for the recipe is provided as a courtesy and is approximate. Please double-check with your own dietary calculator for the best accuracy. We at Yummi Haus cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
Created by Gina Kleinworth
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