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    Home / Recipes / Cakes, Pies & Cupcakes

    Fluffy White Frosting

    Apr 9, 2021 · Updated: Oct 24, 2023 by Dee Dine · Affliate links disclosure.

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    A fluffy white frosting recipe with the light bakery-style crunch, healthier, and made bright white thanks to a whitening trick, and made with 3 simple ingredients including a healthier one, to make the perfect sweet piping frosting.

    white frosting

    My fluffy healthy white frosting that tastes incredible, and pipes onto cupcakes and cakes like a perfect dream, leaving a tiny crunchy surface just like bakery frosting. It's perfect on my fluffy vegan vanilla cake or my healthy chocolate cake, or even as the filling in my cream-filled hot chocolate cupcakes.

    And this vanilla frosting is extremely fluffy, easy to pipe and melts in your mouth thanks to my whipping technique. It's healthier thanks to a healthier shortening, and it is bright white in color despite the addition of yellow butter and brown vanilla extract because of a special trick I'll share with you.

    Healthy Fluffy Frosting
    Jump to:
    • Why You'll Love This Recipe
    • Ingredients
    • Steps to Make
    • What to Use White Frosting On?
    • Substitutions
    • How to Store
    • Recipe Tips
    • FAQS
    • Other Frosting Recipes
    • 📖 Recipe

    Why You'll Love This Recipe

    A bakery light frosting. This frosting recipe creates an old fashioned bakery texture two ways: (1) ensuring ingredients are at room temperature, and (2) whipping it with a mixer for a minimum of 2 minutes.  Both factors allow air to be incorporated, resulting in a light and fluffy texture with a light crisp coating.

    It has nutritious for a frosting. This frosting uses a healthy shortening made of healthy fats, including coconut oil and red palm oil. Coconut oil benefits are well-known, and red palm oil is considered to be a strong antioxidant that protects against disease and has other skin and heart benefits. [source]

    Fits all diet types. This frosting is naturally dairy-free, vegan and gluten-free.

    It's an exceptionally delicious frosting. That's because of the combination of the palm oil shortening and organic powdered sugar. Organic powdered sugar makes frostings taste so much better than those made from regular powdered sugar in that it contains tapioca instead of corn starch found in most commercial powdered sugars. I challenge you to try it!

    Ingredients

    white frosting ingredients.

    Organic Powdered Sugar: As I noted above, this sugar contains tapioca instead of corn starch found in most commercial powdered sugars, and it tastes so much better that you might want to always buy organic. My favorite brand is Wholesome.

    Butter: This butter provides half the fat and I normally use vegan Earth Balance sticks. Be sure to allow the sticks to be at room temperature before use; this takes about two hours or overnight.

    Organic Plant-based Shortening: The other half of the fat portion is shortening. Not the white lard-based shortening such as Crisco however. Look for Spectrum or Nutiva brands.

    They both produce plant-based shortenings containing the healthier red palm oil. In my fudge frosting, I Nutiva's whose shortening is a mix of red palm oil and coconut oil. It's delicious, but it is yellow, so works best for a chocolate frosting as it discolors white frosting. For this white frosting, I use Spectrum's shortening, made of palm oil and white. 

    See the recipe card at the bottom for full information on ingredients and quantities.

    Steps to Make

    For more detail, visit the complete and printable recipe at the bottom of this post, but here are general steps.

    1. Be sure butter, shortening and milk are all at room temperature.

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    2. Add all ingredients, except half the milk, to a bowl and hand mix until combined. Add the rest of the milk or more to reach the texture you want. Mix again only just enough to combine.

    3. Add a tiny amount - only ¼ of a drop - of blue food using the method I describe in FAQS below on how to make your buttercream bright white.

    4. Now it is time to mix the frosting for a solid 2 minutes to incorporate air and achieve an old fashioning fluffy texture.

    4. Store your white frosting in a sealed container for two weeks in the refrigerator.

    Healthy Fluffy White Frosting

    What to Use White Frosting On?

    I used it on my healthy chocolate cake, my hot chocolate cupcakes, my vegan vanilla cupcakes, my dairy free chocolate cake and my fluffy vanilla cake as well. As I mentioned, it pipes beautifully and holds the shape overnight or longer.

    Substitutions

    There aren't a lot of swaps here. I suppose you could use all butter instead of using any shortening but then you won't have the lovely light bakery frosting crunch on the surface, or the rich flavor.

    How to Store

    This frosting can be refrigerated for 2 weeks in a sealed container, or frozen for 3 months. However, keep frosted cupcakes or cakes on the counter at room temperature for about 24 hours. After that, refrigerate them.

    Recipe Tips

    This recipe makes enough frosting to frost about 18 cupcakes or 1 (2-layer) cake.

    Make this frosting 2 weeks in advance and keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. To frost, let the frosting reach room temperature, about 10 minutes, before frosting.

    Healthy Fluffy White Frosting

    FAQS

    How Do I Make Buttercream White?

    Shortening, butter and vanilla can add a yellow tinge, so to whiten your frosting, smear a speck - like ¼ of a drop - of blue food coloring into the frosting. The key is not to add more than a teeeny speck. Put a drop of food coloring on a teaspoon and then dip a corner of a paper towel to wipe ¾ of it off the spoon. Then I dip the spoon with leftover food coloring into the frosting.

    How do you make white frosting from scratch?

    It's very easy to make this white frosting. Just put all ingredients in a bowl, mostly sugar, butter, shortening and mix and you have frosting.

    How do you thicken white frosting?

    Thicken frosting by adding powdered sugar or even tapioca or arrowroot.

    Why is my white frosting grainy?

    Any frosting made with shortening can seem a bit grainy if you don't mix it enough.

    Other Frosting Recipes

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      Chocolate Fudge Frosting (with Cocoa)
    • a bowl of icing with gingerbread behind it
      Vegan Royal Icing
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    If you tried this recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!

    📖 Recipe

    white frosting

    Fluffy White Frosting

    Created by Dee Dine
    A fluffy white frosting recipe with the light bakery-style crunch, healthier and made bright white thanks to a whitening trick, and made with 3 simple ingredients to make the perfect sweet piping frosting.
    5 from 2 votes
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe SaveSaved! Rate Recipe
    Prep Time 5 minutes mins
    Cook Time 5 minutes mins
    Total Time 10 minutes mins
    Course Dessert
    Cuisine American
    Servings 18
    Calories 201 kcal

    Ingredients
     
     

    • ½ cup butter (I use vegan Earth Balance sticks)
    • ½ cup organic shortening (Spectrum (white) or Nutiva (yellow) - Both contain healthier organic red palm oil)
    • 4 cups organic powdered sugar
    • 3-4 tablespoon dairy free milk
    • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
    • ¼ teaspoon salt

    to whiten the frosting

    • ¼ drop blue food coloring*
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    Instructions
     

    Prep

    • Set the butter out to allow it to reach room temperature overnight or at least two hours before using. Make sure shortening and milk are also at room temperature.
      ½ cup butter

    Make Frosting

    • Put all ingredients - except hold back 2 tablespoons of milk - in a large bowl and use a hand-mixer to mix the frosting until ingredients are just combined. Add the 2+ tablespoons of milk if needed to get the texture you want. Up until now, your whipping is only to combine, not to fluff.
      ½ cup organic shortening, 4 cups organic powdered sugar, 3-4 tablespoon dairy free milk, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon salt

    Make color bright white

    • To make your frosting bright white, put a drop of blue food coloring on a spoon. Use a tissue corner to absorb nearly ¾ of it off. You want only the tiniest smear of blue to remove the yellow tinge and make your frosting bright white. Repeat as needed.
      ¼ drop blue food coloring*
    • Once you have achieved the color you want, make the frosting exceptionally fluffy by whipping it two minutes.

    Store

    • To keep the frosting wet until you are ready to frost your cake, put a soaking wet paper towel over the bowl. This will keep the frosting soft for an hour if you keep the paper towel wet so plan your baking around this window.
    • Store this frosting in a sealed container in the refrigerator for two weeks. To use it, let it sit at room temperature until it is soft, about 5 minutes. Stir or even whip again briefly if needed for texture.

    Video

     

    Notes

    This recipe makes enough frosting to frost about 18 cupcakes or 1 (2-layer) cake.
    Organic powdered sugar. You can also use regular powdered sugar. The organic type has tapioca instead of cornstarch and tends to taste better, thus your frosting will taste better.
    *Note that I wrote ¼ of a drop, a very tiny amount.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 201kcalCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 1gFat: 11gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 14mgSodium: 47mgPotassium: 6mgFiber: 1gSugar: 26gVitamin A: 167IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 5mgIron: 1mg
    Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

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    5 from 2 votes (2 ratings without comment)

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    white frosting
    dee dine

    My name is Dee Dine and I’m a two-time cookbook author and certified nutritionist. Here you’ll find easy, healthy recipes made with few ingredients and always egg free, dairy free, & gluten free. About Dee →

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