This delicious vegan buttercream frosting is silky, smooth and velvety and perfect to spread on cakes or pipe onto cupcakes. Easy 4-ingredient recipe.
This vegan buttercream frosting is so creamy and silky you will fall completely in love with it!
It works wonderfully spread onto cakes or piped onto cupcakes. It’s also wonderful spread onto cookies. If you’re looking for a frosting for some vegan sugar cookies, this works great!
It’s a simple 4-ingredient recipe that is totally versatile and comes out beautifully every time.
When testing this recipe I tried it out on our vegan vanilla cake and that is the cake that you see featured below. I doubled our vanilla cake recipe to make it a 9-inch beauty and this frosting was the perfect amount to spread onto a 9-inch cake.
As you can see from the photos below, I probably went a little heavy with the frosting in the middle of the cake, it’s a little thicker in the middle than it is on top, whoops!
But it’s definitely enough frosting for a 9-inch cake and if you want to use it for an 8-inch cake it will be great too. You’ll just have it on a little thicker, which is never a problem in my view.
The cupcakes featured in these photos are our vegan vanilla cupcakes and piped on as you see in these photos, this was the perfect amount of frosting to generously pipe frosting onto 12 cupcakes.
If you piped a bit less generously, or if you spread it instead of piping it, you could frost a lot more cupcakes.
Want the chocolate version of this buttercream? Check out our vegan chocolate buttercream frosting.
How To Make Vegan Buttercream Frosting
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract and a little salt to a stand mixer.
- Starting at slow speed, gradually increase speed until the frosting is thick and smooth with a silky spreadable texture.
- Spread onto cake or pipe onto cupcakes.
If your mixer has a fairly small bowl (like mine) then hold a tea towel or paper towel over it (carefully, don’t let it get caught up in the mixer) when it starts so that powdered sugar doesn’t puff up out of the bowl.
Alternatively you can cream the butter first and then add in the powdered sugar bit by bit but that method doesn’t usually fit in with my impatient personality.
Recipe Tips
The most important thing to a good vegan buttercream is the texture. It needs to be really silky and spreadable but also firm enough to pipe. So you’re looking for a really thick, but silky, consistency.
So the vegan butter that you use becomes quite important for this. The ideal texture for your vegan butter is one that is quite firm.
You can use something like Earth Balance buttery sticks if you have access to it, but a vegan butter that comes in a tub is also going to be great, it just needs to be one that is fairly firm.
You get some tubs of vegan butter that are really soft straight from the fridge, like they are just never firm. That will be less ideal here. If that’s all you have access to, then you might just need to add about ¼ to ½ cup more powdered sugar to get this to the right consistency.
If all you can get is those bricks of margarine (that might be accidentally vegan) that are rock hard, then that will work, but you might need to add a few extra drops of soy milk or almond milk to it.
The difference in textures with vegan butters is all about water content, if it’s really soft, it likely has a higher water content, if it’s very firm, it has a lower water content. This is why it has an impact on your end result.
So if following the recipe as written results in something that is not thick enough, add more powdered sugar and don’t be shy.
If it results in something much too thick, add in some non-dairy milk a drop at a time.
Vegan Buttercream Q&A
Can I use coconut oil instead of vegan butter? Not in this recipe. It’s really important that the ‘butter’ part of the buttercream be a vegan butter.
What brand of vegan butter do you recommend? I have used a few, I have used and like Nuttelex (Australian brand) and Earth Balance (USA) but since we have a worldwide audience, I don’t generally find it that useful to recommend a particular brand. Use what is available and follow the tips above in getting the right texture irrespective of the brand you use.
How many cupcakes will I be able to frost with this recipe? It depends! If you’re piping like I did in these pictures, then it will frost 12 cupcakes. If you’re just doing a spread of frosting on top, then it could be enough for triple that number! And if you’re piping the frosting but doing it much less generously (not going for the ice cream cone look) then maybe you could frost as many as 18-24 cupcakes.
What size cake is this vegan buttercream for? It frosts a 9-inch two layer cake beautifully, as shown in these photos, or an 8-inch two layer cake very generously.
Storing and Freezing
This will keep at room temperature for around 3 days. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks though. So if you need to make it in advance of a cake, you can do so. It does firm up in the fridge, so if it gets too firm, then bring it back to room temperature on the countertop before using.
It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to use it, let it thaw in the fridge overnight and whip it up in the stand mixer again before using.
More Vegan Frosting Recipes
- Vegan Lemon Buttercream Frosting
- Vegan Vanilla Frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Ganache
- Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 3 ½ cups Powdered Sugar (420g)
- 1 cup Vegan Butter (225g)
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Add the powdered sugar, vegan butter, salt and vanilla extract to the bowl of a stand mixer and starting at slow speed, gradually increase speed until thick and smooth.
- If your consistency is too thick, add a little non-dairy milk a drop at a time, and if it’s too thin, add ¼ to ½ cup more powdered sugar.
- Spread onto cakes or pipe onto cupcakes.
- Store leftovers in the fridge.
Notes
- Cakes: This recipe makes enough to frost an 8 or 9-inch two layer cake.
- Cupcakes: This recipe makes enough for 12 cupcakes when piped generously (as pictured).
- Storing: This will keep at room temperature for around 3 days. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. So if you need to make it in advance of a cake, you can do so and store it in the fridge. It does firm up in the fridge, so if it gets too firm, then bring it back to room temperature on the countertop before using.
- Freezing: It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to use it, let it thaw in the fridge overnight and whip it up in the stand mixer again before using.
Can I use a plant based butter with either avocado oil or olive oil?
Yes!
Thank you for sharing vegan cooking content! Can food dye and or flavouring be added to this recipe and if so what type?
Thank you 🙂
You can use both if you desire and start with a drop or two of either gel or liquid food coloring and mix it in. If it’s not the correct color, continue to add a few drops at a time and mixing it in until you are happy with the color.
This is the third time I have made the vegan vanilla cake for my niece. I wish I could find the vegan butter you have in your photos with the rich yellow color. I hope to purchase a stand mixer which I think would help with the vanilla butter cream recipe. Thanks for a great recipe!
Hi Donna. Thanks so much for sharing and for your great review!
So, this makes a delicious and flavourful icing that’s easily piped. It comfortably iced a full 3 dozen cupcakes for me. However! The directions are a set up for an explosion of icing sugar. You can go ahead and dunk 3.5 cups of sugar dust in a mixing bowl all at once and then turn it on….low or not, dish towel held up or not. Maybe it works for others but when I did it (against my better judgment) I was rewarded with a volcanic eruption of powdered sugar and a lot of expletives. Then I got to clean up a bunch of icing sugar (about a cup puffed out) off the walls and counter when I should have been prepping for.my six year old’s birthday party.
I got ton of compliments on the frosting, and I liked it enough to remake it just this morning. But save yourself the headache and add that sugar a half cup or less at a time. And yes, I used room temperature butter, not cold, and used a standard KitchenAid stand mixer with the usual paddle attachment.
Hi Jai. Thanks for sharing and for your review. We use the Kitchen aid with the plastic bowl cover that attaches snugly to the bowl which helps to stop the powdered sugar explosion.
Hi I have used stork butter blocks (uk) as it says it’s vegan friendly. I have a decorated a birthday cake for someone who is lactose intolerant how would I store the cake till she collects tomorrow would it be ok at room temperature wrapped or should I refrigerate it? Many thanks
Hi Jade! Better to refrigerate the cake if it’s only going to be delivered the next day.
Delicious frosting!!! I will definitely make it again!
Yay! Thanks so much for your lovely review Carolyn!
I really love a lot of your recipes but not this one. Maybe it is what frosting lovers look for but for us it was just so sweet as to put us off our cake ( your vanilla cake which was good before the frosting went on).
Do you have any recommendations for less sweet toppings?
try adding a half teaspoon of salt
Hi, I only have access to vegan butter spread. Would adding extra powdered sugar be okay with that too?
Hi Jessica, We haven’t tested this with vegan butter spread, so I can’t say.
can you use your homemade butter in this recipe?
Yes you can!
Is the butter unsalted, or salted Vegan butter? I have seen both in the grocery. It would make a difference, adding salt to the recipe.
I usually use salted, but honestly I don’t find it makes any big difference. If you use unsalted and and think it needs something then by all means add a pinch of salt.
I’m wondering if I need the butter to be room temperature or should I simply take it directly out of the refrigerator to start beating? You said it needed to be firm, but I’m thinking that it would be too difficult to beat when taken directing from the fridge. What’s best? Thank you!
Hi, it really depends what vegan butter you are using. If you’re using a stick style that is very hard straight out of the fridge then you can let it soften first, OR you can just cut it into cubes and beat it in your stand mixer to soften it.