Cream cheese frosting is a must for some cakes such as carrot cake (in my opinion) and making a dairy free and vegan version can seem to be challenging. However the magic ingredient is silken tofu which is quite smooth and neutral tasting. There is another recipe for dairy free cream cheese in the blog but I prefer to use this recipe as a topping or frosting since it is richer tasting and smoother in consistency. As far fetched as it may sound in a taste test on some carrot cake this topping was pretty much indistinguishable from the regular cream cheese topping, so I can objectively attest that few people would notice it is vegan unless you told them.
The richness comes from the coconut oil which makes it creamy and provides the necessary fat that would naturally be present in regular cream cheese. I prefer to use refined as it is odourless and does not have any taste, and raw coconut oil has a slight coconutty smell and taste which I personally do not care for in things that should not require coconut (but that is just my personal preference). Coconut oil has quite a low melting point so depending on the time of year it happens to be a liquid or a solid in my pantry. If yours is solid you can warm this up in the microwave or in a water bath, enough so it is soft or just melted, but without it being hot.
This recipe creates a yield of 450g of dairy free cream cheese, and can be scaled up or down as required.
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Pin recipe Ingredients
For the dairy free cream cheese
- 350 g silken tofu
- 1 tsp icing sugar
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- ½ tsp apple cider vinegar
- 4 tbsp lemon juice
- 75 g coconut oil (refined)
To make it into a frosting
- 4 tbsp icing sugar
- ½ tsp lemon / orange zest
For the dairy free cream cheese
- 12½ oz silken tofu
- 1 tsp icing sugar
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- ½ tsp apple cider vinegar
- 4 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 oz coconut oil (refined)
To make it into a frosting
- 4 tbsp icing sugar
- ½ tsp lemon / orange zest
Instructions
- Add the tofu, vinegar, lemon juice and 1 tsp of sugar in a jug and blend until smooth with a hand blender.
- Add the coconut oil, preferably soft or melted (it has a low melting point of 25C so it doesn’t need to be hot) and mix with the blender until all the oil has incorporated and you can’t see any oil floating on top.
- Taste for tanginess, it may be that you may want to add some more lemon juice, however beware adding too much liquid as this will make the consistency too runny.
- To make it into a frosting it is necessary to add icing sugar and the zest of a citrus, depending on the dessert you are making. For a carrot cake I like to use orange zest, for other cakes lemon would perhaps be more suitable. The icing sugar also needs to be sifted to avoid any lumps. You can use the blender to mix it all in or simply mix using a fork.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour so it thickens up as the coconut oil make make it harder as it cools down and then it is ready to use.
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4.64 from 11 reviews
