So I've been on a bit of a vegan Swiss meringue buttercream roll lately so naturally, a chocolate edition was in the works after last month's vegan coffee buttercream recipe. The results of both recipes are quite similar to vegan Italian meringue buttercream, but the method is a little more simplified, yay!
Swiss meringue buttercream is traditionally made using egg whites and dairy. Luckily, making your own vegan Swiss meringue buttercream at home is so easy. In this recipe, we'll be following the traditional method of making Swiss buttercream pretty closely, but we'll of course be using fully vegan ingredients.
Here's what's to love about this chocolate buttercream recipe:
- Deep and intense chocolatey flavor thanks to a combination of dark chocolate and cocoa powder.
- Light and airy consistency
- Not overly sweet like some American-style buttercream recipes.
- This recipe calls for brown sugar, not powdered sugar. We'll be melting sugar into a syrup with aquafaba which will magically whip up into fluffy clouds!
- Using brown sugar also gives a slightly caramelized flavor! You can also use regular white caster sugar (superfine).
- Doesn't require a candy thermometer
- No need to reduce the aquafaba.
- Fully customizable, you can mix up the flavors or just keep it plain and simple.
Ingredients overview
- Aquafaba: Or chickpea brine, is the viscous liquid leftover from cooking chickpeas or other white legumes. It works as an alternative to egg whites in many ways. It can be used to make a cake, brownies, marshmallows, meringues, and many other vegan-friendly versions of classic desserts and treats. And in this case, forms the perfect egg white substitute for a vegan Swiss meringue buttercream.
- Soft brown sugar: I use light muscovado, but you can also use caster sugar for this recipe.
- Vegan butter: There are many brands of vegan-friendly butter available these days, it's important to note that this recipe calls for stick butter, not the spreadable kind from a tub, I use flora unsalted plant butter.
- Dark chocolate: You'll want a good quality dark chocolate for this recipe, I use 78%. The flavor will shine through in the frosting.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder: For an intense and deep chocolate flavor go for Dutch-processed cocoa powder, for a milder and more acidic flavor opt for raw cacao powder.
- Sea salt: This is optional, but it really brings the chocolate flavor of this buttercream to the forefront.
How to make vegan chocolate buttercream (with step-by-step images)
(Full ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the end of this post)
Melt the dark chocolate over a double boiler (bain-marie) and set it aside to cool slightly.
Add the aquafaba and sugar to a large bowl and place the bowl on top of a saucepan with a few inches of water in the bottom - this is known as a bain-marie (water bath). Bring the temperature up to medium and allow the mixture to heat for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove the bowl from the heat and use an electric whisk (or transfer the syrup into your stand mixer) and beat on high speed for 15-20 minutes until the mixture is completely cooled and glossy. The mixture should be stiff and glossy and should stay in the bowl if you turn it upside down (carefully!).
Start slowly adding the chunks of butter to the meringue, one at a time, allowing the mixture to incorporate for about 5 seconds between each one. The mixture will flatten as you add the butter, just continue to add the butter as it will stiffen when the full amount of butter is incorporated.
Once all the butter has been added the mixture be thick like buttercream, continue to whisk on low for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is fluffy and lightened in color. If the mixture looks split, don't worry it will come together with enough blending.
Add the cooled melted chocolate to the buttercream and continue to whisk for a couple of minutes until combined. Next, add the cacao powder and sea salt and blend for another minute or two until evenly mixed.
Ways in which to use chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream
- To frost cakes such as vegan devil's food cake.
- To frost vegan cupcakes.
How to store this buttercream
Serve this buttercream at room temperature. Use it immediately to frost your cakes or cupcakes or store them in an airtight container in the fridge. Because of the melted chocolate in this recipe, the buttercream will stiffen in the fridge. Bring it back to room temperature for a few hours until it comes back to a creamy consistency before serving.
More vegan frosting
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star ★★★★★ rating in the recipe card below and consider leaving a comment as well, thanks!
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📖 Recipe
Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream (Vegan)
Ingredients
- 3.5 oz (100 g) vegan dark chocolate
- 9 tablespoons (133 g) aquafaba *see recipe notes
- 1 cup (220 g) soft brown sugar or caster sugar (superfine)
- 8.8 oz (250 g) vegan block butter room temperature, cut into 1" chunks
- 2 tablespoons (10 g) Dutch processed cacao powder
- pinch sea salt
Instructions
- Melt the dark chocolate over a double boiler (bain-marie) and set it aside to cool slightly.
- Add the aquafaba and sugar to a large bowl and place the bowl on top of a saucepan with a few inches of water in the bottom - this is known as a bain-marie (water bath). Bring the temperature up to medium and allow the mixture to heat for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
- Remove the bowl from the heat and use an electric whisk (or transfer the syrup into your stand mixer) and beat on high speed for 15-20 minutes until the mixture is completely cooled and glossy. The mixture should be stiff and glossy and should stay in the bowl if you turn it upside down (carefully!).
- Start slowly adding the chunks of butter to the meringue, one at a time, allowing the mixture to incorporate for about 5 seconds between each one. The mixture will flatten as you add the butter, just continue to add the butter as it will stiffen when the full amount of butter is incorporated.
- Once all the butter has been added the mixture be thick like buttercream, continue to whisk on low for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is fluffy and lightened in color. If the mixture looks split, don't worry it will come together with enough blending.
- Add the cooled melted chocolate to the buttercream and continue to whisk for a couple of minutes until combined. Next, add the cacao powder and sea salt and blend for another minute or two until evenly mixed.
Storage
- This buttercream is best served at room temperature. Use it immediately to frost your cakes or cupcakes or store it in an airtight container in the fridge. Because of the melted chocolate in this recipe, the buttercream will stiffen in the fridge. Bring it back to room temperature for a few hours until it comes back to a creamy consistency before serving.
Notes
- Aquafaba: The liquid part from tinned chickpeas.
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Thank you! This is great and not overly sweet. I've been baking for years and I'm slowly converting all my recipes vegan. I was so confident in my non-vegan buttercreams' textures and I have been struggling with vegan buttercreams so my confidence was at an all time low. The only vegan buttercream that I could get to work was a tahini chocolate because the tahini would help make the frosting light and fluffy, but this recipe alone works great!
I used country crock's vegan butter in the US for reference, I know some people were struggling with other brands so I thought I'd post a brand that was successful.
Hi Bobbie,
Thank you so much for sharing this, it really means a lot 😊. I know vegan buttercreams can be such a learning curve, especially when you’re used to the consistency of traditional ones, so I’m really glad this helped rebuild your confidence. That’s a huge win.
And thank you for mentioning the Country Crock vegan butter too — that kind of brand-specific feedback is so helpful for other readers. Really appreciate you taking the time to share!
I was really looking forward to this one but I couldn't get it to come together. I followed the directions exactly but I actually think melting my chocolate so early caused it to cool too much. And then something about adding the cocoa powder made it break entirely and I could not salvage it. I let it mix for longer and I tried the melting a couple spoonfuls trick but it didn't work. I'm sure there's an optimal temperature for the chocolate to be I would love to know what that is! I've made your other meringue frosting recipes with no trouble so I was really bummed!
Same thing happened to me... So disappointed 😭 first time making swiss meringue buttercream. It looked perfect up until the chocolate addition
Great recipe and the icing turned out delicious. I ended up having some leftover so I froze it. I've never had an issue freezing plain SMBC before, but when I tried to tried to rewhip this chocolate one, it just wouldn't come together again - stayed split looking and wouldn't go back to being silky and fluffy. I thawed it overnight in the fridge and then the next day brought it to room temp on the counter. Not sure why it went so wrong!
Hi Jess,
Thank you so much for the feedback, I’m really glad you enjoyed the recipe! With the chocolate version of this frosting, it can be a bit more temperamental after freezing because the chocolate and cocoa butter set very firmly and don’t always re-emulsify the same way. If you try it again, a trick to help bring it back together is to melt a few tablespoons of the buttercream, and then slowly whisk it back into the rest of the mixture. This should help to emulsify the buttercream.
Absolutely delicious, but when I added the cooled, melted chocolate the frosting liquified. I kept beating it and added the remaining ingredients, but I was never think enough to frost a cake. Even after adding powdered sugar, chilling it, and beating more, it was too loose. I used Miyoko’s butter, so that may have been where the failure came from
Hi Kirsten Ann,
I saw your comment on the Swiss meringue buttercream which is the base of this recipe too - so it definitely sounds like the butter could be the culprit here too. I don’t have access to that brand here in Europe to test with, but I wonder if it is just a bit too soft or melts too quickly for stable frostings like this one. If you try again, you could experiment with a firmer vegan butter or chill the frosting briefly before whipping. I really appreciate you sharing your experience!
Wonderful, easy to follow recipe. I am a vegan baker, so the "curdling" stage didn't frighten me one bit. Keep on whisking, and voila, came together perfectly. Tastes amazing!
Hello!
Aw thank you so much for your feedback 🙂
I followed it as per your instructions and it curdled
I can’t it to not look like those kids play sand. I know if mix enough it should come together but it’s not. I even add more butter like your vanilla one said to.
Hi Sig,
What brand of butter did you use? If you have trouble in future, I recommend melting a couple of tablespoons of frosting and adding it back in while whisking. It sounds like there may have been too much liquid, or the temperature of the ingredients were too cold which could have prevented it from emulsifying.
I didn't manage to do this! I have a good electric whisk and the aquafaba I used was thick, but it took me an hour to get to something like step 2, and the soft peaks nerver appeared.
Don't know where this went wrong. Will try another, less ambitious frosting, since I have baked other recipes from this website and liked them!
Hi Marie,
I'm sorry to hear this 🙁 When you say the aquafaba was thick, did you reduce it? Did you move past the second step or stop there? Sometimes aquafaba can be finicky and not fluff up as much, but anytime this has happened to me it always ends up working out once the butter is incorporated.
Hi, sounds tasty!
Can this frosting be piped onto cupcakes?
Thanks
Hello Alecia,
Yes, absolutely!
So Good! Tastes like chocolatey marshmallow fluff.
Hi Mieke,
So happy you loved it, couldn't have described it better! 🙂
Hi Thanks for this recipe it looks delicious.
I want to make a Nutella version, do you think just adding vegan nutella at the stage you have added the melted chocolate would work ?
Hi Julie,
Absolutely, that sounds delicious!
Happy Holidays. I hope you answer. It is taking more than 15 min to fluff up the aquafab and sugar. Should I start over?
Thank you so much in advanced
Hi Lillian,
Yes, it can take longer to whip up depending on your equipment etc. The mixture should be stiff and glossy, and should stay in the bowl if you turn it upside down (carefully!). You can't overwhip it so just keep on going until you reach that stage 🙂
This frosting is fantastic, and I used it for the devils food cake!!! Everyone loved i! I had chilled it for a few minutes before piping it onto the cake, which was also cooled off, but the warmth of my hands???? Made it melt on its way into the cake, essentially, so, the results were hilarious! Sooo good, though!
So happy you loved it and thank you so much for your feedback! Sometimes the warmth of your hands can cause it to melt. I would suggest not chilling the buttercream before piping, rather pipe it straight onto the cooled cakes while it's freshly whipped - that way you won't be altering the texture/temperatures. You could also try using a spatula instead of the piping bag in case you ever come across this again