This Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting recipe is absolutely delicious and surprisingly dairy free! Its light, fluffy and perfect for frosting cakes or sandwiching between cookies.\
Its been a while since I've posted a new buttercream recipe. The truth is, once you have a vanilla and chocolate, you can really flavor them any way you like. You can transform vanilla into fruit buttercream by adding jam or freezedried fruit. Or into brown sugar buttercream by adding molasses. Or add a dash of orange blossom water or any other extract to spice it up.
And with chocolate frosting, you can adjust the cocoa powder to make a milk chocolate or dark chocolate buttercream. Or you can add spices to it to make a Mexican hot chocolate buttercream. Or even add a hefty dose of salt to make a sea salt chocolate buttercream.
So as you can see, once you have the basics down, you can branch off. But, I realized that once of my favorite flavors needed to be made into its very own buttercream. So here is my new favorite: Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting.
About this Peanut Butter Frosting
This buttercream is light and fluffy, which many peanut butter frosting aren't. Peanut Butter can be heavy and hard to whip air into. And it can especially be hard to maintain a smooth texture. But this recipe really nails it. This buttercream in sturdy enough to fill cakes while being light and smooth enough to pipe onto cupcakes.
The flavor of this buttercream is inspired by an old favorite snack: honey roasted peanuts. So sweet, so salty, so addictive. But, to keep this peanut butter frosting vegan and dairy free, I thought maple would make the perfect substitute for honey. And boy was I right.
There is no need to maple roast peanuts and grind them into nut butter for this recipe. We're just going to fancy up regular old store-bought peanut butter for this buttercream. A dash of maple syrup and a big pinch of salt make this sweet and salty buttercream irresistible.
Ingredient Notes for Vegan Peanut Butter Buttercream
For this Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting recipe be sure to use natural peanut butter. Thats right. The kind you need to stir. I only use natural peanut butter because I prefer the flavor. My favorite brand is Teddie.
The variety that doesn't require the occasional stir has a bunch of other ingredients in it which dilutes the peanut flavor. And we want all the peanut flavor we can get to come through. So, if you haven't yet, make the switch to the natural stuff.
For vegan butter I used Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks in the avocado oil variety. They taste great and work well for all the baking that I've used them for. Of course the old faithful Earth Balance Soy-Free Buttery Sticks work well here, too.
Looking for More Frosting Recipes?
This Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting is great on vanilla and chocolate treats. I've used it to fill Chocolate Whoopie Pies, to pipe onto Vanilla Cupcakes and to frost a Peanut Butter Cake.
Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoon Vegan Butter I used Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks
- ½ Cup Natural Peanut Butter
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ¼ Cup Maple Syrup
- 2 Cups Powdered Sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the softened plant butter until no lumps remain, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add peanut butter and salt to the mixer and combine well, again scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is fully incorporated.
- With the mixer on low, stream the maple syrup into the peanut butter mixture. Scrape the bowl down and turn the mixer to medium speed to whip up for about 30 seconds.
- Now, add 1 cup of powdered sugar and turn the mixer on to low to incorporate. Scrape the bowl down and add the second cup of powdered sugar. Turn the mixer on low to incorporate.
- Once the powdered sugar is incorporated, turn the mixer to medium and let the buttercream whip up for about 1 minute. It should be smooth, light and fluffy.
- Add vanilla and stir on low to distribute.
Let me know how you liked this recipe and what you frosted with it!
AE
This frosting is DIVINE.