Creamy, fluffy, and packed with rich chocolaty flavor! This luscious vegan chocolate frosting is exactly what you need for your next cake. Whips up in minutes and it's freezer friendly too!
You know how some people scrape the frosting off of their cake. Well, I never got that! Usually they'll say it's too sweet or heavy, but I suspect they're just trying to be healthy. As someone who generally eats reasonably healthy and doesn't have that much of a sweet tooth, I think the frosting is the best part of the cake!
This is, if it's good frosting. Sometimes the frosting on store-bought or bakery cakes tastes like shortening and sugar, and that doesn't really do it for me. Chocolate buttercream frosting has always been my favorite, but for some reason I never bothered to make a vegan version until now, thinking it wouldn't be as good as non-vegan frosting.
Well guess what? This vegan chocolate frosting tastes just like the stuff I grew up eating.
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Ingredients You'll Need
The ingredients are pretty close to what you'd use in a conventional chocolate buttercream frosting, with a few notable differences. Here's what you'll need:
- Vegan butter. If you're familiar with the stuff, you probably saw that one coming. If you're not familiar, you're probably wondering what it is. Vegan butter is essentially margarine, but it's dairy free. Regular old margarine usually has some dairy additives, so it's not vegan. Look for products specifically labeled as "vegan." Earth Balance, Miyoko's and Melt are a few popular brands. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter also has a vegan product.
- Non-dairy milk. Just about any variety of non-dairy milk can be used to make vegan chocolate buttercream, the only exception being canned coconut milk. You're best to use something that's unsweetened and unflavored. Try almond milk, soy milk, or cashew milk. Bring it up to room temperature before using it in your frosting.
- Vanilla extract.
- Cocoa powder. Make sure to use unsweetened cocoa powder.
- Organic powdered sugar. Using powdered sugar that's organic is important here. Most refined sugar, at least in the U.S., is processed using animal bone char, so it's not vegan. How do you find a sugar that's vegan? Look for organic! Organic sugar is processed differently, and no animal bones are involved.
How It's Made
The following is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make vegan chocolate frosting. Scroll all the way down if you'd like to skip right to the recipe!
- You'll want your vegan butter and milk at room temperature before you get started. If you forget to set your butter out, soften it up quickly using this method.
- Place the butter in a large mixing bowl and beat it at high speed with an electric mixer until it becomes creamy. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer here — whichever you prefer!
- Next, beat in your non-dairy milk, vanilla, and salt.
- Now add the cocoa powder and start beating in the powdered sugar in batches. Continue adding powdered sugar until you're happy with the taste and texture.
Try not to eat too much of your vegan chocolate frosting straight out of the bowl. Save some for the cake!
Shelf-Life & Storage
Store your leftover vegan chocolate buttercream frosting in an airtight container. It will keep for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator, or 2 months in the freezer.
Tip: This recipe makes a big batch of frosting. Big enough to generously frost and stuff a two layer cake (spoiler: a recipe is on the way!). If you don't need that much, you can cut back on the batch size, or just freeze the leftovers for later.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is!
One option is to add more powdered sugar. The more powdered sugar you add, the thicker your frosting. But powdered sugar will also sweeten the frosting. If you want frosting that's thicker but not sweeter, try popping the entire bowl in the fridge for 30 to 60 minutes. This will harden the butter, making the frosting thicker.
This is usually due to differences in temperature. Make sure your milk and butter are at room temperature before you start making your frosting.
Maybe, but I'd recommend you follow my vegan vanilla buttercream frosting recipe instead.
Vegan Cakes to Top with this Frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
- Vegan Coconut Cake
- Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes
- Vegan Red Velvet Cake
- Vegan Pound Cake
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) vegan butter, at room temperature
- ¼ cup non-dairy milk, at room temperature, plus more as needed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 4-5 cups organic powdered sugar
Instructions
- Place the butter into a large mixing bowl, and beat it at high-speed with an electric mixer, until creamy.
- Beat in the non-dairy milk, in two additions, beating each addition in fully before adding the next.
- Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Beat in the cocoa powder until fully incorporated into the mixture.
- Begin beating in the powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Continue adding the powdered sugar until you're happy with the consistency and taste of your frosting (4-5 cups total). If you find you've added too much, thin the frosting with a tiny bit (a tablespoon or less) of non-dairy milk.
- Use immediately, or store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or in the freezer for 3 months.
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Do you think this recipe could be made in a sheet cake pan without adjustments to the original recipe?
Hi Eileen! Did you intend to leave this comment on my chocolate cake recipe? If so, the answer is that I think you'd need to increase the bake time, but I can't say by how much without having tried it myself. I'd keep an eye on it and start testing it every few minutes once the time specified in the recipe is up. You could also get some tips from this guide: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2019/10/28/how-to-make-sheet-cake-from-a-layer-cake-recipe I will update the recipe with instructions if I have a chance to try it!
Just made this frosting for our daughter's vegan birthday cake. I was a little short on vegan margarine, so I used 1/4 cup Justin's chocolate hazelnut spread to make up the difference. Ooh la la! What a wonderful texture and taste!
Tastes great but I would cut the amount of vegan butter. I had to add way too much powdered sugar. Then I still had to let it firm up a little in the refrigerator. Still, knowing I need to make these adjustments I will use your recipe again!
the recipe ended up delicious but it took a lot of adjusting even with the extra cup of powdered sugar it was still very liquidy i ended up using about 7 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar an extra half cup of cocoa powder and about an extra tablespoon of vanilla to get the texture right and to adjust the taste after adding so much sugar it turned out great but it was difficult to get a consistency that was firm enough to decorate my cupcakes with
Can I substitute coconut oil instead of ising the vegan butter? If so, how would I need to adjust the rest of the recipe to compensate for the change?
I'm really not sure, but my gut tells me no. Coconut oil doesn't soften the same way as vegan butter does - it's either pretty solid or totally liquid. So I'm thinking it won't blend well.
I followed the recipe and it's, like, separating. It's strange. Any idea what could have gone wrong? It's also REALLY liquidy despite adding the additional cup of powdered sugar.
Oh no! Vegan butter does have a tendency to separate, but everything should mix up nicely once you add the powdered sugar. Is it possible you added too much liquid? Or used regular sugar instead of powdered (confectioner's)? Those would be the most likely causes of it being too liquidy.
It's also possible the butter got too warm, that's what happened to me my first attempt!
This is really good and I have added it to my hard copy, handwritten recipe book.It is also extremely easy to make and I used a small hand whisk for mine instead of an electric mixer. Enjoy!
Wonderful! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and it's great to hear that whisking works. Thanks Sharon!
Delicious, I added a packet of single cup instant dark coffee. I couldn't stop taste testing it.
Great idea! Glad you like it!
Thanks for this great recipe! I have used it twice already and it was delicious & easy both times :)
Awesome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thank Terri!
Do you have a suggestion regarding a brand name of vegan butter, or the best 'accidentally' vegan margarine?
Earth Balance is probably the most common one. There's also Miyokos, and Melt and I can't Believe It's Not Butter both have vegan lines. :)
I like the organic version of Earth Balance because it tastes like real butter and is much healthier for you than margerine. It seems to melt at a lower temperature so it whips up quickly into soft, fluffy peaks at roon temperature and makes delicious, creamy frosting.
Becel vegan butter has worked great with any recipes I've used. It tastes great, too even just on toast.
Country Crock plant butter with avocado oil is our go-to butter! It is a one for one use in all things baking and cooking and you can’t tell it isn’t dairy!
Does it pipe well on cupcakes?
Yup! :)
YUM! Made this tonight. At first when I was adding in the powdered sugar I thought something really wrong happened: the consistency was not....ideal ha. But as I added more and more sugar it became creamier. Really happy with how easy this is to make, and how simple the ingredients are. I added in maybe 2 tablespoons of cooled coffee to make it a choco coffee frosting. Will make again and keep experimenting with other flavors! Love your site, haven't made a recipe yet I didn't like!
Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I love the idea of adding some coffee and may try it next time myself!
This recipe is easy and delicious as is. It is also easy to modify and adapt. I tried the following changes and it turned out GREAT!
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Frosting:
If you're making this for adults or teens who like chocolate with peanut butter, (think Reeses), try replacing half of the powdered sugar with peanut butter powder, (PB FiT Organic or Betty Lou's Just Great Stuff Organic). It cuts the sweetness a bit, adds a rich peanut butter flavor and boosts the nutritional value with extra protein, fiber, potassium & iron.
Reduced Sugar:
You can almost eliminate the sugar without losing any sweetness or affecting the taste by substituting powdered monkfruit in place of powdered sugar. I was delighted to discover that powdered monkfruit looks and tastes exactly like powdered cane sugar and it really has no aftertaste or chemical flavor like most non-nutrative sweeteners do. I have never been able to tolerate artificial sweeteners. Aspartame makes me violently ill and sucralose gives me headaches and makes me vomit. I can use Stevia, but I'm not fond of the taste in most things. Powdered monkfruit is completely natural, tastes amazing and has no calories. The texture and sweetness are nearly identical to powdered cane sugar so it is very easy to use.
I'm so glad you like it! And thank you so much for the tips! I haven't worked with powdered monk, but now I'm itching to give it a try.
Hi
Thank you for the info 😃
I wanted to know how much monk fruit powder did you use in replacement for sugar (I understand that it’s sweeter than white sugar so do you use like half)?
That's a lot of cacao powder? Is 1 cup correct? Wouldn't just 1 tablespoon or 2 work? Chocolate is hard to get sweet generally and is very bitter plain.
It is correct - this is a big batch! Plus there's quite a bit of powdered sugar to detract from the bitterness. I don't think 1 or 2 tablespoons would be enough to make the frosting very chocolaty, but you could always start there and add more towards the end of mixing. You'll just need to alternate adding cocoa and powdered sugar to make sure you get the right balance.
I made this with half the cocoa, because its all I had, and I def wish I had the full amount. Not that it was bad! But yes, you need the full cup.
People are crazy scraping off that frosting! I don't like too much, like most cupcake shops put too much of an icing mountain, but you need SOME frosting! I think it is a mix of crisco frosting and being healthy that people just jump to scraping. Because I remember either taking off frosting when I was little or just not eating cake people it was clearly a store bought sheet cake.
Definitely! I'm honestly not big on too much frosting, but most cake without it is too dry for me. :)