Dairy Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Too often, cake frosting can be found to be too something, especially if it’s dairy free. Too runny, too sweet, too little flavor…

If you want an easy but delicious chocolate American-style buttercream, check out this blog post:

Scroll down to the Chocolate Frosting under Procedures

But if you’re ready to level up your frosting game, while keeping things free of dairy, read on!

Swiss meringue buttercream is promised to be lightly sweet, fluffy, and a balance of decadence and overall lightness to keep you wanting more but not feeling sick about it. It’s made of simple ingredients, but one of them is butter. With it being such a key ingredient, could it be possible to make Swiss meringue buttercream frosting dairy-free, and would it taste good?

Hypothesis 1: We can make a Swiss meringue buttercream from a traditional recipe, but without any dairy!

Hypothesis 2: It will taste subtly sweet and balance nicely with a simple cake!

Method

Recipe Source:

Preppy Kitchen’s recipe for Swiss meringue buttercream

Dairy-Free Modifications:

Substitute the butter with a dairy-free margarine or butter substitute.

I used Imperial brand unsalted margarine sticks. I also recommend Country Crock’s plant butter sticks, though I have not tried them in this particular recipe. For this recipe, it is important to consider texture and stability.

Procedures:

This is not HARD but requires a little more patience and a lot more time than whipping up American style buttercream.

The basic procedure involves whisking the egg whites and sugar over heat, then whipping it while it cools, then adding in butter (or in our case, margarine) gradually.

WARNING: It sounds relatively simple, and it’s not complicated! But it does take time and patience, especially for the whipped egg whites to cool back to room temperature before adding in the margarine. In hopes of expediting this process, I placed ice packs around the mixing bowl.

Results

Subtly sweet, with a divine “mouth feel,” this dairy free version of Swiss meringue buttercream is definitely a level up from standard American buttercream! Both are delicious, but this version of frosting tastes decadent without being quite as heavy.

Discussion

This light and fluffy Swiss meringue buttercream is what dreams are made of! As John Kanell, the recipe author, promised, “it is not too sweet and will melt in your mouth.” It complemented the chocolate bourbon cake beautifully.

This was my second time making this recipe (the first time for a gluten-free lemon meringue pie for some lovely family members), so I can attest to this recipe’s reliability as well.

Was it worth making Reviewer #1 wait for his birthday cake to be ready until past 9pm? You’ll have to ask him, but all signs point to yes.

Allergen statement:

With my modifications, this recipe can be made free of dairy. It does contain eggs, which are an essential ingredient to this recipe. I’d be interested in finding and trying plant-based versions, if you’ll share any recommendations with me! This recipe is naturally free of nuts, as long as you use a nut-free butter substitute such as Imperial brand margarine (used above), or Country Crock Plant Butter made with olive oil. As long as you check the ingredients of your plant-based butter, this recipe should be gluten-free as well.

Future directions:

I’d love to get creative with flavorings, and try new versions of frosting as well! I was able to create a pretty good dairy-free chocolate ganache recipe a little while ago, would you like to see it? Drop a comment here or on Instagram @dairyfreewithemily!