This Sugar-Free, Low Carb Vanilla Buttercream Frosting is simple, low carb and needs only 4 ingredients!
With just 4 simple ingredients you can have a sugar free, low carb, gluten free vanilla frosting for any dessert. Whether you need to frost a cake or cookie, this recipe is so simple a child could make it successfully!
This recipe was first published in December of 2014. I'm re-sharing it today because I felt it needed a video to show how easy it is to make.
This weekend was a perfect Saturday with nothing to do but stay home and bake and that's exactly what we did! I was so grateful to have a Saturday at home for the first time in a really long time after what seemed to be an endless streak of busy weekends.
My youngest two kiddies and I made two kinds of cookies! The first that you see in these pics today with the frosting is a recipe I originally made with whole wheat flour, my Sugarless Sugar Cookies and the second recipe will be coming this week for Gingerbread Men! I made the sugarless sugar cookies twice using Bobs' Red Mill gluten free flour and had to adjust the sweetener a bit from the original recipe.
I've been finding that Swerve is a perfect cooking baking ingredient as it perfectly adds the bulk the sugar would have provided. Although it isn't as sweet, so I the first time around I always seem to not use enough stevia and the product is not as sweet as one would want in a cookie or any baked good. But with this line of business, it's the name of the game and thankfully each time, especially with this frosting, the kids ate the not so sweet sugarless sugar cookies anyway.
I've made a few delicious frostings that will provide you some variety for all your baking endeavors: Chocolate Buttercream, Cannoli Frosting, Peanut Butter Buttercream, and here's a collection of 16 fantastic frostings!
I'm sure your wondering about the food coloring in the cookies right? In October when I made my green Halloween Witches finger cookies I tried using a less expensive brand of natural food coloring I found at Whole Foods instead of purchasing the brand you see above in the picture because it was about $16.00! We experimented with cookies using the cheaper brand and the taste was not kid approved. This brand, while expensive, is worth every cent because there was absolutely not aftertaste or funny taste at all and the kids loved it.
The red color did not come out as red as I would have liked, it's more pink but my daughter was thrilled with the pink so we kept it. I think If I continued to add red coloring it would have been closer to a red color.
I used to get deeply frustrated with myself when a recipe didn't come out perfect on the first try. How silly now that I look back over the last 3 years of this blog. Trial and error is how I have perfected my skills and testing recipes and having fails, while I hate wasting ingredients, it is all part of the deal when it comes to making sugar free desserts.
So when you see a dessert recipe on this blog you can know for certain that it's been made more than once and it's as good as it gets for sugar free baking.
My daughter is just 11 but she is taller than me and looks like a 13 years old and my little man is 8. They love to help in the kitchen and the pretty decorated cookies you see on the plate is ALL them! They found that using a knife to spread the frosting was difficult so they washed their hands and used their fingers, almost like finger painting on a cookie. Made for a much more smoother look.
The only decorations not sugar free were the mini chocolate chips from Enjoy Life and the white pearl candies. The sprinkles were naturally dyed made by the same company for the food coloring I purchased.
Overall I'm super happy how pretty these turned out and once the frosting dried a bit on top were were able to freeze them between parchment paper in an airtight container to be ready for our cookie tray assembling on Christmas Eve.
And here's my quick Youtube video to show you how easy this is!
Brenda's Notes
- When I figured the nutritional information, I thought about a tablespoon was sufficient for each cookie. Obviously if your cookies are smaller cut outs you may need less.
- To make this dairy free, the butter could be switched to softened coconut oil and the milk, a non dairy alternative like almond milk.
- If you prefer stevia, instead of Swerve, for this recipe you would need a powdered stevia that would add bulk to create the texture. Or use whatever sugar free powdered sweetener you prefer and taste and adjust to your preference.
Sugar Free Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Sugar-Free Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter room temperature
- 1 cup Swerve confectioners
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons coconut milk
Instructions
- Add all ingredients into a stand mixer and blend on high until smooth.
- Continue to add additional milk for desired consistency. Makes 1 ¼ cup or 10 ounces.
- Does not need refrigeration once on cookies.
- Unused frosting can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks or frozen for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Hi Brenda,
If I don't have Swerve but have allulose, how much allulose should I use?
I have tried to make butter cream with the stevia confectioners and it turned out that it was not be the right consistency and the taste was too much like aspertain and the other artificial sugars that are not good for us. How can we mask that taste? Can we use a flavoring?
This is brilliant, I started to make normal icing but ran out of icing sugar and found this. I was able to make a good icing while still using the batch I had started to make just adding xylitol and vanilla extract.
I doubled this recipe so there would be enough for 48 sugar cookies, and oh my the icing was sooo sweet I couldn't stand it. I used Swerve Confectioners (2 cups), 2 sticks of unsalted butter (the recipe didn't say salted or unsalted so I wasn't sure), 2 teaspoons of vanilla, and 4 tablespoons of Silk unsweetened coconut milk. What did I do wrong? I ended up trashing the icing entirely because it was like pure sugar. Please help!
Oh that's too bad, sorry you felt it was too sweet. Rather than trashing it you could have added more butter to the mixture, but next time, best to make one batch and taste it before doubling. Or use half the recommended sweetener and taste and adjust from there. Swerve is 70% less sweet than white sugar.
Hey you could use Lily's chocolate chips or chop up Lily's bars to keep sugar free. Beautifullly bake also makes sugar free chocolate chips
Tried this recipe with Splenda, since I was unable to locate Swerve in my local stores. Ended up a little goopy, so I added a third more Splenda at a time and mixed until the frosting was satisfyingly firm. (2/3 extra Splenda total) It tasted GREAT! I dribbled some food coloring and squished it all into a ziplock bag that I cut the tip off of, before decorating some premade sugar-free cookies. I love guilt free snacking!
I’m so glad I came across your site on Instagram. I’m on Low Carb and my problem is sweets! Now, i’m going to be fixing all your recipes to try. Thank you, for sharing. I will for sure be ordering your cookbook.
My daughter will be decorating a cake for her grandparent's 65th. Will this recipe work for cake decorating?
Thanks.
For those who need to be dairy-free, coconut oil is not a great butter substitute in icings. It is very oily and gives a greasy mouth feel. It also melts on contact with little hands, resulting in greater mess everywhere. Vegetable shortening is neutral in flavor and has a higher melting point (meaning that it stays firmer at room temperature - like butter does). Some shortenings like Nutiva even have butter flavoring if that's important to your recipe flavor. Shortening (as opposed to coconut oil) is also a more equivalent butter sub in most baked goods as well. Most recipes calling for butter will have a more similar texture after baking if you sub in shortening rather than coconut oil.
Is the serving size correct? 1 gram ?
No the recipe plug in had a glitch with all serving sizes converting to 1 gram.It's 1 ounce.
I made this frosting with stevia tonight and it literally tastes like earwax. So disappointing! I really need to track down some erythritol. I ruined my cupcakes. Sigh.
What is a serving? It says 34 calories. Is that for a tablespoon?
Soubds great.