This vegan cream cheese frosting is airy, light, and fluffy with a slightly tangy flavor without being overly sweet.
Made with just 4 ingredients and in one bowl. Made with real vanilla bean and whipped for an almost mousse-like consistency.
This delicious cream cheese icing perfectly complements so many vegan cake recipes like vanilla chai cake and cupcakes such as these pumpkin cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes.
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💭 What to expect from this recipe
In this vegan cream cheese frosting recipe, non-dairy butter is whipped until light and airy before incorporating any of the other ingredients. This makes this dairy-free frosting irresistibly smooth and delicate while still being suitable for piping.
This recipe calls for less sugar than a lot of other cream cheese frosting recipes you'll find. That's because well, personally I don't like overly sweet buttercream and I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone on that. I also find the additional sugar unnecessary, once the butter is whipped up correctly it creates an emulsion that is soft and airy yet perfect for piping straight from the bowl.
🗒 Ingredients needed
Ingredient Notes
- Vegan Butter - I usually use Flora unsalted plant butter, which works perfectly for any vegan buttercream recipes I've tried.
- Vegan Cream Cheese - I use violife, but you can use any vegan-friendly cream cheese that’s available to you
- Powdered Sugar - Regular icing sugar does the job here, make sure you sift it to remove any lumps before adding it to the frosting.
- Vanilla - I highly recommend using a real vanilla pod to get the best results for this particular vanilla cream cheese frosting. You can however use a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste in its place if you have it to hand. Vanilla extract is also an option, but it won't give you those gorgeous vanilla specs!
🥣 How To Make Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Add the room temperature vegan butter to a bowl and whisk it for five minutes, yes five full minutes! You want it to become whipped, airy, and light.
- Add the vegan cream cheese in 3-4 parts, and whisk it into the butter each time until fully incorporated.
- Now slowly start adding in the icing sugar, I recommend a tablespoon at a time whisking in between one.
- Lastly, add in the vanilla and mix that through.
📝 Recipe Tips
Get your ingredients to room temperature before getting started on this vegan frosting recipe. If your butter is cold it can cause the frosting to curdle or get chunky (lovely!). There's a fantastic article on kitchen.com about mistakes to avoid when making buttercream.
Sift the icing sugar before adding it to the whipped buttercream cheese mixture. This is because, at the point of adding the sugar, you'll have already done most of the whipping so you don't want to add lumpy sugar to the mix!
Variations
- Pumpkin spice: Add one teaspoon of pumpkin spice to the frosting when adding the vanilla for a fall-inspired buttercream.
- Chai spice: This can also be added (one teaspoon) with the vanilla during the last step of the recipe.
- Cinnamon: For cinnamon cream cheese frosting, add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon with the vanilla.
- Lemon: Add half to one teaspoon of lemon extract depending on your taste to create a lemon cream cheese frosting.
🍰 Ways To Use It
- Cupcakes: Think pumpkin cupcakes, carrot cake cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, black forest cupcakes, gingerbread cupcakes, etc. This fluffy buttercream frosting makes the perfect complement to so many cupcake recipes without adding too much sweetness.
- Sheet cake: This cream cheese frosting spreads like a dream over sheet cakes such as vanilla chai cake or banana cake.
- Layer cake: Try it with vegan pumpkin cake, vegan carrot cake, orange gingerbread cake, or chai cake.
- Muffins: That tangy cream cheese flavor would work wonderfully with some double chocolate marshmallow muffins.
- Dessert pizza: You can use it in place of chocolate spread to top sweet pizza.
💬 FAQs
Keep this dairy-free cream cheese frosting in an airtight container and refrigerate.
If you want to pipe it on cupcakes or muffins, do so straight after it's whipped up as it will firm up once chilled.
Be sure to take your cake or cupcakes out of the fridge for a few hours before serving to allow time for the frosting to soften. I've had no issues with keeping this cream cheese frosting out at room temperature for a full day, however, this may vary depending on climate.
Absolutely, it makes a great vegan buttercream for vegan carrot cake, chai cake, red velvet cake, and more.
Absolutely. Buttercream and frosting can sometimes split, mainly due to temperature differences in ingredients (eg. the butter is too cold). I find that split frosting can almost always be saved by this method:
Take 2 tablespoons of the frosting and melt in the microwave for 15-30 seconds. Whisk this back into the spit frosting until incorporated and smooth. Repeat one more time if needed.
☁️ More Vegan Frosting Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 200 g (7.05 oz) vegan block butter room temperature *see note 1
- 300 g (10.58 oz) vegan cream cheese from the fridge
- 240 g (2 cups) icing sugar sifted
- 1 vanilla pod
Instructions
- First make sure your butter and cream cheese are taken out of the fridge 2-3 hours before making the frosting to allow them to come to room temperature. Cut the butter into small chunks and place in a large bowl. Use an electric whisk or stand mixer to whisk the butter for 5 minutes. It will become light and airy.
- Add the room temperature cream cheese in 3-4 parts and whisk each time to incorporate it into the whipped butter.
- Slowly add the icing sugar in 1-2 tablespoon increments, whisking for a few seconds between each one to incorporate the sugar into the mixture.
- Lastly scrape the inside of the vanilla pod out with a sharp knife and add to the bowl. Whisk for another minute or so to combine.
- If using to frost a cake, cupcakes or muffins, place the frosting into a piping bag or simply use a pallet knife to spread it on, and use immediately. Alternatively you can keep this frosting in an airtight container in the fridge and allow it to come to soften slightly at room temperature before using.
Storage
- If you want to pipe it on cupcakes or muffins, you can do so straight after it's whipped up as it will firm up once chilled. Otherwise, keep in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to a week. Allow it to come to room temperature before frosting cakes or cupcakes.
Notes
- Vegan Butter - Block-style butter, not margarine from a tub. Take this out of the fridge 1-2 hours ahead of time.
- Yield - This recipe will yield approximately 3.5 cups of frosting which is enough to frost about 20+ cupcakes or a large cake. You can half the recipe if needed.
- Pumpkin spice, chai spice, or cinnamon: Add one teaspoon of spice to the frosting when adding the vanilla for a fall-inspired buttercream.
- Lemon: Add half to one teaspoon of lemon extract depending on your taste to create a lemon cream cheese frosting.
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