#3’s first birthday was nearing and I needed dairy-free frosting for his cake. I contemplated going the easy route and buying the generally dairy-free Duncan Hines canned frosting, but those have a funky aftertaste and way too much sugar for my taste. So, homemade it was.

I wanted something easy, something with few ingredients, something not terribly processed. I found a recipe online for a dairy-free vanilla frosting and prepared the concoction according to the instructions.

The frosting was good but not great. It wasn’t quite vanilla-y enough for me, it was a tad too salty, and it was too sugary. So I tweaked the recipe,  decreasing here and substituting there to create my own recipe. I much preferred it… Hubs and #1 did too. Here’s how I made it.

VEGAN VANILLA FROSTING 

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup coconut oil (chilled)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 small pinch salt
1 Tbl non-dairy milk

Directions

Add all of the ingredients into the bowl of an electric mixer.

Mix on low, scraping the sides of the bowl often (be sure to turn off your mixer when doing this.)

Gradually increase the mixer’s speed until you reach the highest setting, still stopping to scrape the bowl sides so everything gets blended.

Mix until the frosting reaches the desired texture.

Store in an airtight container and refrigerate if not using immediately.