Creamy, sweet and natural strawberry frosting that will bring your dream desserts to life. This dairy free pink buttercream frosting uses real strawberries and lasts for a week in the fridge! The perfect item for vegan strawberry cupcakes.
Vegan Strawberry Frosting
Pink frosting is my favourite for cupcakes, muffins, and just about any dessert. When I think pink, I think sweet, juicy, and ever so slightly tart strawberries. But I rarely come across frosting with a real strawberry flavour. It's usually artificially flavoured or just coloured pink.
This strawberry frosting is different. Dairy free, butter cream frosting using real strawberries!
It came about because I wanted to make vegan cupcakes with fresh strawberries from the top to the bottom. I started by making strawberry puree with a food processor and added it to the cupcake batter. It worked really well!
So next for the frosting. If you’ve tried to make pipe ready vegan frosting from scratch, you probably know that it can take a bit of trial and error without the right recipe.
And that’s exactly what I did. I tried extending the strawberry puree to the frosting, but it didn’t work so well. The frosting was too soft and runny, and did not hold its shape well without freezing it. Then I thought of freeze dried strawberries - a real game changer.
They absorb excessive moisture of the vegan butter cream and even help the overall softness for piping. It turned out to be easy strawberry frosting from there.
Matching the amount of powdered freeze dried strawberries with confectioners' sugar gave it the sweetness and helped maintain the structure. It worked really well.
Ingredients for vegan strawberry frosting
Freeze Dried Strawberries is the star for this pink frosting recipe. Please do not use dried strawberries or frozen ones. Freeze dried strawberries are the ones you go after.
Freeze Dried Strawberries is the star for this pink frosting recipe. Please do not use dried strawberries or freeze your fresh strawberries for use. Freeze dried strawberries is what you need. You can find them at iHerb, Amazon or ALDI.
Vegan Butter: Unsalted butter is the best for this recipe. Bring your vegan butter up to room temperature. This way sugar will be combined well with the butter. Don’t be tempted to melt it with a microwave as you want it to be evenly soft (not liquid butter).
Corn starch: If frosting doesn’t have much structure and is a bit too liquidy, add one table spoon corn starch.
Confectioners' Sugar: Adding confectioners' suger is not only for sweetening but to bind the ingredients. Granulated sugar doesn’t work well as granules make it lumpy.
Plant Yogurt: I used soy yogurt because I wanted to keep the frosting smooth and solid. But you can use any plant based milk. Control softness as you like by adding plant based milk or yogurt.
How to Make Strawberry Frosting
This strawberry frosting is easy to make. Just add freeze dried strawberry powder and other ingredients into softened vegan butter. Then mix well together.
Two top tips:
- Use room temperature vegan butter. Just measure and leave it out of the fridge overnight. Then I made the frosting the next day. Confectioners' sugar can easily be blended with the softened vegan butter.
- After grinding the freeze-dried strawberries into powder they tend to get sticky in the bottom of the food processor. So transfer it into the softened butter as soon as possible. Then keep whipping with a hand mixer for about 1 minute.
That's it! Spread frosting onto cakes immediately. Or leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes before piping. Or keep it in the fridge for up to a week if you’re making cakes later.
How long does it last?
This strawberry frosting last for a week in the fridge and for three months in freezer. It depends on the room temperature but you can leave frosted cupcakes or cakes for a while before eating. Otherwise if it’s a hot day leave them in the fridge.
Where to buy freeze dried strawberries.
I used to buy freeze dried strawberries at ALDI and was eating them as snack or with breakfast cereal. I also bought it at iHerb and Amazon.
This recipe is adopted from Sally's Baking Addiction, which gave me an idea to grind freeze dried strawberries into powder and use it for frosting. And, of course, I've veganized their frosting. It worked! I also tried freeze dried mangoes and raspberries. They work perfectly for frosting, so stay tuned!
Let me know how you used this vegan strawberry frosting for your dream desserts in the comment below. I’d love to hear how they went.
Vegan Strawberry Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegan butter (235g)
- 1 cup freeze-dried strawberries (30g)
- 3 cup confectioners' sugar (360g)
- 1 tbsp corn starch (optional)
- ¼ cup plant yogurt (60ml)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Keep vegan butter at room temperature. Soften it with a hand mixer. Set aside.
- Add freeze-dried strawberries into a food processor and grind into powder. As soon as they are grinded, transfer the powder into the softened butter.
- Add confectioners' powder, plant yoghurt and pure vanilla extract. Keep mixing t hem with the hand mixer or blender for about 1 minute. If the texture is too soft, add 1 tbsp of corn starch. When the cake or cupcakes are completely cool, start piping. Serve immediately or start piping.
Recipe Notes:
- Once freeze-dried strawberries are grinded in the food processor, transfer it into the softened butter as soon as possible. Freeze-dried strawberries tend to can get sticky in the bottom of a food processor.
- Frozen or dried strawberries are not recommended for this recipe. Please use freeze-dried strawberries.
- This strawberry frosting can be kept up to seven days in the fridge and for three month in freezer. Leave it in a fridge over night for use.
- Make sure the texture and structure of the frosting mixture can be brought into peaks in the bowl, but don’t make too firm (control firmness with corn starch)
- I have three piping sizes: Wilton 6B, 1M and 1A
- I found that the Wilton 1A or 6B works best for this recipe, but you can always experiment and if it doesn’t work
- The secret to good piping is to squeeze the bag evenly and circle the tip of the piping bag at an even, slow speed around the cake.
- Remember, it’s perfectly fine to scrape off the frosting and put it back in the piping bag if it doesn’t look how you want it to first time round!
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