Dairy and Sugar-Free Buttercream Frosting

Over summer, I worked most weekends, but would take Saturday afternoons off to make a cake. It was lockdown and we could only go outside once a day, and I rarely need an excuse to bake as it is!

Throughout my years living with endo, I’ve worked out how to eat gluten, dairy and sugar free, but it’s a challenge finding sweet treats that aren’t laden with sugar, especially cakes, so I made it my mission to perfect a recipe. And perfect it I did – we put on quite a lot of weight during that first lockdown!

The cake recipe is coming, I promise, but today I wanted to share with you my go-to buttercream. This is sugar and dairy free, but isn’t low histamine or low FODMAP, so if those two aren’t suitable for you, you may need to adapt this or look for another that is better suited.

This buttercream is a simple vanilla one, but you can tweak and change accordingly – add rose water, lavender oil and buds (like I have done in this pic!), chocolate, or whatever you like to make it the flavor you need!

Prep time: 30 minutes
Chill time: 15-20 minutes
Serves 6-8

Makes enough for one six-to-eight-inch sandwich cake (icing between and on top, may need to double if wanting to ice the sides, depending on how thick you like your frosting)

Ingredients for dairy and sugar-free buttercream frosting

• 1/4 - 1/3 cup of coconut butter (depending on how thick you want it)
• Tablespoon cacao butter (in drops or chunks, can also add more to taste)
• 1/2 cup of soaked cashews (soak in boiling water for 15 minutes)
• 1/2 cup of oat milk
• Few drops of stevia, to taste
• 1-2 tsps. of vanilla extract
• 1-2 vanilla beans

Directions for dairy and sugar-free buttercream frosting

1. If you haven’t done so already, pour boiling water over the cashews and leave to soak for 15 minutes.
2. Gently melt the cacao butter and coconut butter in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water, make sure the water isn’t touching the base of the glass bowl.
3. Rinse the cashews and then in a blender, blitz the oat milk, cashews, sweetener and vanilla until smooth.
4. Once the cacao and coconut butter has melted, pour the cashew cream blend into the glass bowl, turn down the heat to low and stir until thick.
5. Leave to cool slightly and then refrigerate for a 15-20 firm up, stirring every so often minutes or so to avoid it going lumpy.
6. Once it's cool enough it should be thick and gooey but still runny. At this point, take it out of the fridge and using an electric whisk, beat until it resembles whipped cream.
7. You can now ice your cake!