Vegan buttercream (chocolate or vanilla)

Light, fluffy and gently sweet!

Let's face it, vegan butter does not always have the best flavor for desserts. Unlike its dairy friend, it tends to have a stronger taste that does not compliment desserts so well (and is hard to mask!). To compensate for this, rather than adding more sugar, this recipe adds more air. By whipping the vegan butter well, you end up with a lighter, fluffier buttercream with a more mild flavor.

This recipe is very flexible in terms of level of sweetness. You need a certain minimum amount of sugar (about 150 g) for it to be a good texture for frosting, but there's no reason to add a full amount if you prefer less sweet desserts. As noted in the method, I taste the frosting after every addition of sugar to prevent it from getting too sweet, particularly when I am baking for adults. The same applies for the cocoa. You can add quite a lot if you want a strong chocolate taste, or only a spoon or two if you want a more subtle chocolate flavor. Basically once the butter is well whipped, everything else can be added to your taste!

The only exception to this would be if you want to do buttercream flowers or other more three dimensional pipping. In this case, you will need to add the full amount of sugar so that the frosting is thick enough to hold its shape.

Ingredients:

300 g (1 1/2 cups) vegan butter (unsalted if possible)

up to 500 g (4 cups) icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

For chocolate buttercream:

up to 50 g (1/2 cup) good quality unsweetened vegan cocoa (such as Callebaut)

Method:

1. Place room temperature butter in a large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer. Using an electric hand mixer or the stand mixer, beat butter on high until lightens in color and increases in volume by about 50%

2. Slowly add sifted icing sugar. Taste after every 100 g or so to determine if you want to add more.

3. Mix in vanilla

4. For chocolate buttercream, add cocoa to taste. Add additional sugar if required

5. Use to frost cooled cake or store in the fridge up to five days

Makes enough frosting for 8-inch 2 layer cake

Notes:

Instead of cocoa, you can also flavor with almond extract, cinnamon, or use vanilla paste for a stronger vanilla flavor.