3-Ingredient Vegan Coconut Cream Frosting (2024)

This vegan coconut cream frosting with whipped coconut cream is the easiest dairy-free vegan frosting recipe ever! If you love a light, creamy frosting with delicious coconut flavor, then this is for you!

Table of contents

I love making cakes, cupcakes, and all kinds of plant-based desserts. I’m sure you’ll agree that a proper cake isn’t finished until it’s frosted! I’ve made many frosting recipes, like my Protein Powder Frosting, Cashew Frosting, and Vegan Chocolate Frosting. But this one here is the simplest, quickest, and most classic version!

What’s Coconut Cream Frosting?

Coconut cream frosting, also known as whipped coconut cream, is a dairy-free frosting made from solid cream forming on top of a refrigerated can of coconut cream. Coconut cream is different from cream of coconut!

Coconut cream contains only coconut extract and water, and sometimes guar gum as a stabilizer, but it has no added sugar.

Ingredients and Substitutions

You only need 3 ingredients to make this recipe:

• Coconut Cream: Canned coconut cream is rich in fat and brings the classic frosting consistency.
• Powder Sweetener: You can use any of your favorite powdered sweeteners, from icing sugar, powdered erythritol, or powdered allulose.
• Vanilla Extract: This is optional, but it gives a delicious taste to the frosting. You can also use other types of extract or natural flavors such as strawberry.

Choosing The Best Coconut Cream Brand

Since this recipe uses only 3 ingredients, the choice of ingredients matters even more. What makes a great coconut whipped cream is fat from coconut.

There is no surprise, that a fluffy frosting is made of fat, and therefore, the amount of fat in your can of coconut is what matters in making a delicious coconut cream frosting. However, when you look closer at the different canned coconut cream brands, you realize that their fat content varies a lot.

This happens because some brands add more or less coconut extract in the can from 59% to 70% coconut extract. As a result, the more coconut extract it contains, the more fat you get. So to choose the best coconut cream for frosting, you need to look at the ingredient list and look for:

• Minimum 60% coconut extract.
• Minimum fat of 20 grams per 1/2 cup, which is 5 grams per 2 tablespoons.
• No added sugar.

What About Guar Gum?

Some brand contains guar gum which actually helps frosting firm up, so I highly recommend this option.

Best Brands Of Coconut Cream For Frosting

I tested many brands, and the best brand to make frosting are:

• Savoy Coconut Cream – Available worldwide.
• Coco Goods Organic Coconut Cream – Available worldwide.
• Let’s do Organic Heavy Coconut Cream – Available worldwide.
• Chantal Organic – New Zealand.
• Ceres Organic – New Zealand.

Whipped coconut cream is similar to whipped cream. It means that to succeed, you must work with cold ingredients. Therefore you must refrigerate your bowl and whip tool the day before making this recipe.

Now that you have selected the best can of coconut cream, place it in the fridge overnight. This step will separate the two ingredients in the can. The cream will stay on top while the water will migrate to the bottom.

How To Make Coconut Cream Frosting

1. Open the can but remain still! You don’t want to mix the coconut cream with the water.

2. Use a spoon to scoop out the thick coconut cream residue from the top of the can, making sure you don’t scoop the water.

3. Place the coconut cream in the refrigerated bowl along with powdered sugar and vanilla extract if desired. Don’t use maple syrup in this recipe. It makes the frosting heavy and dense. Other options to sweeten the frosting are to use powdered erythritol, allulose, or stevia drops for a sugar-free option.

4. Whip the cold coconut cream on high speed with a hand mixer or in your stand mixer with the whipped attachment. You know it’s ready when it forms lovely waves of firm light cream on top of the bowl.

Expert Tips for Perfect Frosting

• Note that this recipe won’t work in a food processor! You must use a whip attachment from a stand mixer or the beater from an electric mixer.
• If your cream is not as thick as you expect, add 2-3 tablespoons of corn starch in the bowl, whisk at high speed until the frosting gets the right texture. Adding more icing sugar will provide the same effect, but it increases the sweetness. Another option to firm up your frosting is to whisk in 1/2 teaspoon of guar gum.

Fixing Coconut Cream Frosting

The most common issues with whipped coconut cream are:

• Cream not firming up: This can happen for so many reasons, usually, because your coconut cream doesn’t contain enough fat or you added water into the mix. To fix it, add 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch to the bowl or 1/2 teaspoon of guar gum. These options are gluten-free, and they can save your frosting if too runny.
• Not sweet enough – you can increase the sweetness by adding more powdered sugar or even stevia drops for a keto vegan frosting.

Serving The Frosting

A coconut cream frosting is light like regular whipped cream. It doesn’t keep its volume as well as cream cheese frosting or butter frosting.

It’s not a thick frosting that you can pipe on cupcakes like my vegan vanilla frosting.

This light and fluffy whipped cream is perfect to top up:

• Desserts– add on top of my vegan chocolate pie or vegan peanut butter pie.
• Hot drink – add a dollop to your vegan hot chocolate.
• Muffins and mug cakes– spread on top of these carrot cake cupcakes.
• Cheesecake – add on the side of raw cheesecake recipes.
• Ice cream – it goes well with any scoop of dairy-free ice cream.

Storage Instructions

This coconut whipped cream frosting firms up in the fridge and can be kept well for 2 days in a sealed container or on top of muffins and desserts.

Frequently Asked Questions

About Carine

Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, photographer, and published author of a cookbook and founder of The Conscious Plant Kitchen with my husband Damien.Learn more about us.