This frosting recipe uses coconut butter (also known as coconut mana) and coconut milk to make spreadable dairy-free frosting.
Coconut butter and coconut oil are two different ingredients. Coconut oil is the oil that’s been extracted from the coconut solids, and coconut butter is the coconut solids that has been ground into a paste. In general, coconut butter is a bit firmer as a solid at room temperature, while coconut oil is a softer solid at room temperature. I use this brand of coconut butter for this recipe. Just make sure that the coconut butter you buy has only one ingredient, coconut.
There’s another version of cocoa butter, which comes in a solid form and melts when heated. I use it to make my cocoa butter cookies and it can also be used to make chocolate chips and candy.
I also separated out some of the frosting to create red and green (blue + yellow) icing. I use this set of plant-based food colors made from concentrated vegetable colorants. You can also just use the actual food juices to color the icing. For red, use beet juice or beet powder. For green, use Matcha tea powder, and for yellow, use turmeric.
Coconut Frosting
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup coconut butter also known as coconut manna (not coconut oil)
- 1/4 cup coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract optional
Instructions
- Set up a bain-marie, or double boiler so you can heat the coconut butter slowly without burning it. I do this by filling a small saucepan about halfway with water and then placing a pyrex bowl on top of it.
- Simmer the water and then add all the ingredients to the top bowl and warm up slowly. Use a whisk to blend the mixture.
- Whisk for a few minutes, or until the mixture is getting a bit thick. It will thicken a bit more when it cools so it's OK if it's a bit fluid when warm.
- Take the bowl off the heat and cool at room temperature. You can also cool it faster if you place it the refrigerator for a few minutes.
- Use the icing to frost cookies, muffins, and cupcakes. Store covered in the refrigerator for a week or so.
Hiya. Tasted fine, but didn’t quite work out for me. I wanted to use it to write numbers on biscuits. But it doesn’t really fall flat onto the surface of the biscuit and just stays on top of it, which means it might not set. However, I really appreciate your efforts and I think I will use this recipe when I want to quickly frost some cakes.
Note, I did use sugar because in one of your comments you said sugar should set harder. I’ve left them out for half an hour but still soft so I’ll wait for longer. Fingers crossed. Thanks again!.
Hi Sonny. Yes, this icing is not as fluid as traditional icing. Yes, it can definitely be used as a cake frosting! Thanks for letting me know.
Update:
Few hours in the fridge and the cookies were fine!
Great to hear!
Update: I renamed this recipe from Royal Icing to Coconut Frosting because it behaves a bit more like frosting than icing.
Oh my! This has to be too good to be true! I can’t wait to try!
It’s good!
This looks great, does it set hard like royal icing or stay soft? I want to decorate gingerbread so need something that will set hard.
To make a frosting set hard you must use granulated or powdered sugar. This can be made firm (less liquid) but not hard and crunchy like you get with granulated sugar. You can try maple sugar or coconut sugar.
I saw someone on youtube get honey to the hard candy stage, let it harden, then blitz it into powder, and I’ve wondered how that would perform for applications where someone wants a hard sugar but is on the SCD & can only use honey. I’ve not tried it yet, as it’s probably more work than worth it to me, and I’m not totally sure that the process wouldn’t change the sugars in the honey in an unfavorable way regarding the goals of the SCD, but just putting it out there if someone is desperate enough for options.
Speaking of creating more work for oneself, I discovered that one can make coconut butter/coconut manna, by grinding unsweetened plain coconut flakes in a food processor or high power blender until it is a smooth consistency (and if it’s too dry, one can add a Tbsp. or two of coconut oil). This might help someone for either cost or availability reasons.
Thank you for this recipe! I look forward to trying it. It’s so nice to have options when working around various restricted diets…and usually we end up discovering the most delicious foods that we never would have otherwise. This sounds like it will be one of those!
Hi Jen, great tips! thanks for sharing everything. Another option is to frost with creamy white honey (also known as whipped honey).