This smooth and velvety vegan buttercream frosting will take your cakes and cupcakes to the next level of amazing! It’s light, creamy, and perfectly sweetened!
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This week I’ve been on a roll with sweet treats! I started by sharing my bird’s nest cookies, followed by my vegan chocolate peanut butter eggs, then my vegan lemon cupcakes! These vegan desserts are a delicious splurge!
While making my lemon cupcakes I realized that I didn’t have a simple buttercream frosting recipe to share with you. I’ve shared my vegan chocolate frosting and vegan cream cheese frosting, and now I’ve got a simple vegan buttercream!
Well, all that’s about to change! This super easy vegan frosting is made in minutes. It turns out light and fluffy and perfectly sweetened! It’s also a versatile recipe you can use as a base to create numerous frosting flavors.
💗 Why You’ll Love This Vegan Buttercream Frosting
- 4 simple ingredients
- 10 minutes from start to finish!
- Versatile recipe!
- Numerous flavor combinations!
- Smooth and velvety!
- Great for piping, or frosting cakes and cupcakes!
🥣 Ingredients and Notes
Vegan Butter: You will need one stick of vegan butter, or about ½ a cup. Make sure your butter is softened at room temperature.
Powdered Sugar: I use organic powdered sugar to ensure it is vegan-friendly.
Flavored Extract: You’ll use vanilla extract when making a simple vanilla-flavored buttercream. However, you can easily change the flavor of the vegan buttercream by using a different type of extract such as lemon, strawberry, peppermint, or raspberry extract.
Soy Milk (optional): I add a touch of soy milk if my frosting seems too thick. You may or may not need to add it.
📋 How to Make Vegan Buttercream Frosting
- Add room-temperature butter to a large bowl. Using a hand or stand mixer, cream the butter for about 1 minute or until butter is creamy and fluffy.
- Add vanilla extract. Then cream together until combined.
- Add the powdered sugar a half cup at a time, creaming together on high speed with a hand mixer until all the sugar is incorporated. You will need 2 ½ to 3 cups of powdered sugar until a thick frosting forms. If the frosting seems too thick, add the soy milk one tablespoon at a time.
💭 Expert Tips
- Make sure you’ve whipped the butter well before adding the powdered sugar.
- Don’t add all of the powdered sugar at one time. Add about half a cup of powdered sugar until you’ve reached your desired consistency. Depending on the butter and sugar, you may need a bit more or a bit less powdered sugar.
- You want your texture to be silky and smooth, yet firm enough to pipe. I like my frosting on the firmer side.
- If you feel that your frosting is too thick, then add the soy milk or non-dairy milk one tablespoon at a time to help thin it out.
- Add the flavorings to the butter before you add the powdered sugar, and whip to fully incorporate.
👩🏻🍳 How to Serve Vegan Buttercream
Cakes and Cupcakes: This frosting is perfect on cakes and cupcakes! A vanilla buttercream will pair nicely with virtually any type of cake. Try the other flavors too!
Brownies: Frost your brownies with this easy frosting recipe.
Cookies: This frosting is firm enough to use on top of sugar cookies and is great for decorating!
Cinnamon Rolls: If you’ve got a cinnamon roll recipe, feel free to use this easy buttercream to slather on top for an extra special touch.
🫙 How to Store and Keep
Fridge: This frosting will last for about a week or more when kept in the refrigerator.
Room Temperature: If not stored in the fridge, the frosting will be good at room temperature for 3-4 days.
Freezer: You can store the vegan buttercream in an airtight freezer-safe container for up to 2 months. When ready to use, defrost it in the fridge overnight.
❓ Recipe FAQS
I prefer to use Earth Balance baking sticks to make this frosting. Another popular brand I often use is Miyokos. However, many different brands of plant-based butter are on the market today, so use your particular favorite if you cannot find the two mentioned above.
I do not recommend substituting coconut oil or coconut cream in this frosting recipe. The texture and flavor will be off.
This recipe is enough to frost 12 cupcakes. If you’re making a recipe with 24 cupcakes, you’ll need to double the recipe. If you are not using as much frosting on your cupcakes, you may be able to stretch it further.
You can frost a 9-inch two-layer cake or an 8-inch two-layer cake. If you like a thick layer of frosting, you may want to double the amount.
🎥 Video
😋 More Vegan Frosting and Cake Recipes
Recipe
Vegan Buttercream Frosting: 4 Ingredients
Ingredients
Vanilla Buttercream
- ½ cup vegan butter 1 stick
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½-3 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 tablespoon soy milk optional
Instructions
- Add the room temperature butter to a large bowl. Using a hand or stand mixer, cream the butter for about 1 minute or until butter is creamy and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla extract. Cream together until combined.
- Add the powdered sugar a half cup at a time, creaming together on high speed until all the sugar is incorporated. You will need anywhere between 2 ½-3 cups of powdered sugar until a thick frosting forms. If the frosting seems too thick, add the soy milk one tablespoon at a time.
Video
Notes
- Make sure you’ve whipped the butter well before adding the powdered sugar.
- Don’t add all of the powdered sugar at one time. Add half a cup of powdered sugar until you’ve reached your desired consistency. Depending on the butter and sugar, you may need more or less powdered sugar.
- You want your texture to be silky and smooth yet firm enough to pipe. I like my frosting on the firmer side.
- If your frosting is too thick, add soy or non-dairy milk one tablespoon at a time to help thin it out.
- Add different flavors to the buttercream by subbing vanilla extract for different flavored extracts.
- Frosting will keep at room temperature for about three days.
- It will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week or more.
- It will freeze for up to 2 months. Defrost overnight when ready to use.
Katherine
Oh wow I can’t decide which flavor to try first! Maybe peppermint…..
Tracy
My vegan buttercream dreams have been answered. Thank you!
Beth Sachs
This buttercream looks so creamy and smooth. I’ll be using this recipe to ice my daughter’s birthday cupcakes as quite a few of her friends are vegan!
Gina
I’ve been baking more and more vegan and gf so it’s great to have a simple go-to frosting that works with that now. Can’t beat a classic buttercream!
Kay
Lemon is my go-to flavouring for butter icing! But your other ones have got me interested especially the peppermint one!