Fruit-Colored Vegan Buttercream Frosting (dairy-free, 4-ingredients)

This vegan buttercream frosting is dairy-free, and can by colored using fruits. Best of all, it is perfect to use for piping frosting on to cakes and cupcakes because of a secret ingredient. Read on to learn a few tips on how to thicken frosting perfect for piping for cupcakes and cake decorating.

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Fruit-colored Vegan Buttercream Frosting
I love to use fruit and other plants to color frosting.

This frosting is vegan and comes out to be the perfect texture to pipe with. And here I made it pink with dragonfruit, or pitaya, a superfood fruit indigenous to Central America, that is grown now in many Asian countries and tropical areas.

No where near Washington DC though.

So I used frozen pulp that I found in the freezer area of Whole Foods, but if you can find the pink pitaya fresh in your area, grab it up! Or you can use pitaya powder, I use this brand for both the fresh pulp and the powder. Here in the markets in Washington DC, I can often find fresh dragonfruit with white flesh, but not pink.

Pitaya: Why it is Good For You

Still the frozen variety serves up the same nutrients.

It is a super immunity-booster, high in fiber and even has prebiotics. It also stabilizes blood sugar levels, and is high in disease-fighting antioxidants.

And the color is swoon-worthy, so it was the first fruit I thought of when I wanted to make pink buttercream vegan frosting.

And I have since started subbing other fruit to make other color frostings – maybe mango for yellow, kiwi for green, blueberries for blue and carrots (why not?) for orange! The beauty of using fruits to color the frostings is that you add flavor as well! Citrus, chamomile, kiwi all work. The options are endless really.

The secret to achieving a uniform color is in the puree.

And I made these cuppies even more special today by popping out the center and stuffing them with vanilla icing.

Kind of an icing overload here.

And we took the inner core of cake, dried them overnight at room temperature, and crumbled up the stiffened cake and sprinkled that on the cupcakes to serve. How is that for multi-tasking ingredients!

Now, I’m not kidding myself that because I use organic sugar and fruit to color that this frosting that all is healthy.

Nope, sugar is sugar and needs to be eaten in moderation.

And that’s why when I make cupcakes, I make sure the cake also uses healthy wholefood ingredients.

Here I used my black cocoa and black tahini cupcakes so high in magnesium and antioxidants. But I also love using my sneaky zucchini cupcakes here.

The Secret Trick to Make Frosting Pipable

Are you ready to learn the best way to make a frosting stiff and excellent for piping?

It’s using COLD butter. I mean really cold. Not frozen, hehe. Sorry, getting a bit over-exuberant here. I just mean chilled overnight in the refrigerator – where it lives anyway.

As opposed to using it straight from the grocery store, or even leaving it out while you gather baking ingredients and tools.

Don’t do that. Keep the butter in the refrigerator until just before you make the frosting.

The other trick is to whip it for a long time, as in 3-5 minutes.

I have to say you’ll get a smoother consistency if you use a stand-mixer because the even mixing power is stronger than a hand-mixer. But I have used a hand-mixer and still found it pipable, just not quite as smooth as you see here.

A third trick is to add a bit of tapioca, a vegan thickener that comes from a cassava plant.

I hope you enjoy my colorful buttercream recipe!

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Fruit-colored Vegan Buttercream Frosting

This frosting is dairy-free, colored by fruit and perfect for piping cupcakes and cakes. Both colored and white recipes are provided, and each recipe produces about 2 cups of icing

Course Dessert

Cuisine vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free

Keyword dairy-free, frosting, icing, pipable, vegan

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 12

Author Dee Dine

Ingredients

Fruit-Colored Icing (Dragonfruit)

• 3 1/2 cups vegan powdered sugar
• 1 cup vegan butter, COLD (I use Earth Balance sticks of butter I find at Whole Foods)
• 2 tbsp plant milk (or more if needed for texture)
• 1 tbsp pink pitaya (the company I linked to sells fresh pink pitya frozen in grocers like Whole Foods, or you can use their powder)

Vanilla Icing (For the inside filling)

• 3 1/2 cups vegan powdered sugar
• 1 cup vegan butter, COLD
• 3 tbsp plant milk (or more if needed for texture)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (Or powder for stronger flavor, I use this brand)

Optional

• 2 tbsps tapicoa powder (add this to each frosting to stiffen the texture further)

Instructions

Prep

1. Refrigerate your butter overnight. It probably is, of course. But I just want to be sure you realize it needs to be very cold

   Thaw a single package of pink pitaya (I use brand PitayaPlus which can be found in Whole Foods frozen fruit areas). You only need a tbsp of the pitaya, so put the remainder of the package in the refrigerator and use within a day in a smoothie or stir into yogurt for a nutritious bowl.
   

Make Fruit puree

1. Make pitaya (dragonfruit) puree by adding 1 tbsp of pink pitaya thawed flesh (or powder) to 2 tbsp of the milk and wisk vigorously until the color is uniform (no dark pink dots remain)

Make fruit-colored frosting

1. Add the powdered sugar to a large bowl. (If you intend to add tapioca, add it to the sugar, and wisk to combine.)
   

2. Add 2 tbsp milk-pitaya mix, and the cold butter. I chop the butter first quickly in large chunks, if I am using a hand-mixer.

3. Blend or hand-mix until creamy. It took me about 3 minutes, but can take as long as 5 minutes. After a few minutes, add more plant milk by the tsp if necessary until you reach a texture you want - either stiff for piping or creamy for spreading.

Make white frosting (I used it here to stuff the cupcake center)

1. Add the powdered sugar to a large bowl. (If you intend to add tapioca, add it to the sugar, and wisk to combine.)

2. Add 3 tbsp plant milk, and add the cold butter.  I chop the butter first quickly in large chunks, if I am using a hand-mixer.

3. Blend or hand-mix until creamy, adding in more plant milk by the tsp if necessary until you reach a texture you want - either stiff for piping or creamy for spreading.

Stuff your Cupcakes (optional)

1. Take an icing tip and push the wide end (not the decorative tip) into the top of a cooled cupcake. Pull out and a small cylinder of cake should come out with it. Or if it doesn't come out, cut out a circle with a small spoon.
   

2. Pipe icing into the center cavity you just created, and ice the top of the cupcake.

   Enjoy!
   

Dee Dine

Dee Dine is the recipe developer and writer behind Green Smoothie Gourmet. She shares her super healthy wholesome recipes on her blog and her Instagram that she feeds her family and friends. She gravitates toward recipes that are fast to create, plant-based, nutritious, easy, and use familiar ingredients. And chocolate is always a good idea! More about Dee.