I’ve found a winner! We don’t need to sacrifice deliciously rich chocolate flavor when it comes to substituting ingredients in our delicious gluten free or dairy free cakes or buttercreams. I’ve created a delicious dairy free chocolate buttercream to put on a gluten free cake, and the recipes are BOTH here for you today! Let’s get into it below:

Dairy Free Chocolate Buttercream

With my recent adventure finding out which Chocolate Doctored Gluten Free Cake Mix taste & baking test (see the results and recipe for the best Gluten Free Doctored Cake Mix here), I thought we’d need a great alternative option for our buttercream, too! Even though my cake recipes aren’t dairy free (yet :)), I thought I’d try to create a dairy free chocolate buttercream that could be a delicious and dairy-free alternative to my classic chocolate buttercream.

In order to make my Chocolate Buttercream Dairy Free, I needed to find substitutes for my two dairy ingredients: butter and heavy cream. Here’s what I subbed in for those ingredients:

Dairy Free Butter Alternatives

At my local Harmons, I found a few alternatives for Unsalted Butter. The one I found the best reviews (online and from you) were the Earth Balance Unsalted Dairy Free Buttery Sticks. There’s also a vegan version, too. They behaved just like regular dairy butter, so that was a solid win!

Dairy Free Heavy Cream Alternatives

For Heavy Cream, which is obviously very dairy-tastic, we needed to find something that behaves like heavy cream and tasted just as creamy and delicious. I was overwhelmed with all the dairy free whipping cream/creamer options that were available at Harmons. The one I landed on for this recipe was Elmhurst Plant Based Oat Creamer. It had such a great taste and kept the buttercream nice and thick/soft – perfect for what I was looking for. There are lots of substitutes that will work, but this one I found really great for what I was hoping for with this buttercream.

The full recipe is below, and I know you’re going to just love it! You can add it to any dairy free cake to keep everything tummy-friendly for our dairy free friends.

Get the Recipe: Dairy Free Chocolate Buttercream

Delicious Chocolate Buttercream made completely dairy free!
Servings: 7 cups (for one 6″ or 8″ cake)
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Ingredients
 

  • 2 cups (or 4 sticks) Unsalted Dairy Free Butter Sticks , I used Earth Balance Unsalted Buttery Sticks
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup Plant Based Dairy Free Oat Creamer , I used Elmhurst
  • 8-9 cups powdered sugar

Instructions
 

  • In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, whip up the butter until it's light and fluffy; scraping up the butter from the bottom of the bowl so that it lightens in texture, too.
  • Add in the vanilla, salt, cocoa powder, and oat creamer. Whip up until everything is combined very well, then add in the powdered sugar on low speed. Whip up the buttercream on high speed until it's lighter in texture.
    Add in more oat creamer if needed for thinning.
Author: Mandy Merriman – Baking with Blondie