This swiss meringue buttercream is silky smooth and perfectly pipe-able. It is hands down the best sugar free frosting I’ve ever made and is worth the effort. Up your keto baking game with this amazing vanilla buttercream recipe. And it’s virtually carb free!
It’s January and you are all doing your best to get on track, stay on track, and avoid temptation. I totally respect that. I really do.
So why am I posting a recipe for something as decadent as Swiss Meringue Buttercream? Because, my friends, this is hands down the best sugar free frosting you will ever make, bar none. Silky, creamy, so easy to frost keto cakes and other goodies, and it holds its shape for days.
And even if it’s January and you are trying to be good, you deserve a sweet treat once in a while. Especially when it’s sugar free and keto-friendly!
I am a recent convert to Swiss Meringue, having made the American-style frosting all my life. While swiss meringue definitely requires a little more effort, both the flavor and consistency are worth it. It’s less tooth-achingly sweet but it’s silky smooth and the flavor is rich and buttery.
Heretofore, I despaired of making this gorgeous frosting because I knew that erythritol based sweeteners would re-crystallize too much. But having recently discovered that adding a little Bocha Sweet to my recipes helps keep them softer, I decided I wanted to tackle a sugar free Swiss Meringue recipe.
It. Was. Amazing. I felt like I had just won the keto dessert lottery. And conquering a sugar free frosting like this made me feel like I was ready for the big leagues.
What is Swiss Meringue Buttercream?
Swiss meringue is perhaps one of the most beloved frosting of professional bakers. It has an incomparable silky consistency and sweet buttery flavor, without being as tooth-achingly sweet as the standard American frosting.
It’s called “meringue” because it involves using egg whites to get a lighter, fluffier consistency. They are combined with sugar (or in our case, sweetener) and then gently warmed over a double boiler until the sweetener dissolves. Then they are whisked to stiff peaks.
You then add cubes of room temperature butter, which deflates the egg whites. For once, you actually want to deflate the egg whites so don’t panic! Once the whites and the butter are full combined, you truly have the most amazing silky frosting which pipes and spreads so well.
It also uses far less sugar or sweetener. A typical American buttercream will use upwards of 2 cups of powdered sugar, just to have the right structure. In many of my sugar free frosting recipes, I’ve gotten around this by using a little cream cheese to give it some structure without copious amounts of expensive sweeteners.
But this recipe for keto Swiss meringue buttercream uses less than a full cup of sweetener in the whole batch. And it’s enough to frost a 9 inch layer cake or about 18 cupcakes!
Sugar Free Frosting Research
Since Swiss meringue is a little trickier than your standard American buttercream, I knew I need to get the best tips and advice. I turned to some trusted dessert blogs and websites to learn just how to make it properly.
I found the instructions for Swiss Meringue from Handle the Heat to be clear and straightforward and so I followed those most closely.
I also read a great deal on what to do if it doesn’t come out right, which sometimes (often?) happens. My first batch curdled and I managed to rescue it based upon the tips provided on Serious Eats. The article was written by Stella Parks, of BraveTart and her advice was spot on.
Turns out that when it curdles, it may end up being fine if you keep whipping it. But if it won’t come back together, then it can mean that your butter was too cold. All you need to do is re-heat the whole mixture just a bit to bring up the temperature. Then you can keep whipping until it smoothes out.
Worked like a charm, thank you, Stella!
The second time I made it, I watched the temperature of my whites carefully, both while I was heating them and while I was cooling them. And I got perfect sugar free buttercream frosting from the start.
Advantages of Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
Yes, it’s definitely trickier and more time consuming to make than standard buttercream. But it’s so so worth it.
I’ve already mentioned the incomparable taste and texture and the fact that it uses far less sweetener. But it holds up so well at room temperature and it doesn’t get overly greasy. It also doesn’t get crusty in the fridge and with the combination of Swerve and Bocha Sweet, it won’t recrystallize at all.
It can be made ahead and refrigerated for a day or two and can be frozen for up to 2 months. To make it smooth and creamy again, just let it come to room temperature and beat it on low until smooth.
Yes you can add other flavors and additions. I have yet to try that though but I will report back when I do!
So are you ready to up your keto baking game and give this amazing sugar free frosting a try?
Sugar Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 4 large egg whites
- ½ cup powdered Swerve Sweetener
- ⅓ cup Bocha Sweet (allulose or xylitol may also work)
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature cut into tablespoons
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Make sure the bowl of a stand mixer is very clean and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Add egg whites and both sweeteners.
- Whisk gently but constantly, until the sweeteners have dissolved and egg whites are hot and slightly frothy. They should reach about 150F on an instant read thermometer.
- Transfer the bowl to the mixer and attach the whisk. Whip the egg whites at medium high speed until they are thick and glossy and the bottom of the bowl is no longer warm, anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes. The temperature should be about 90F on an instant read thermometer.
- Start adding the butter cubes one at a time until full incorporated and the frosting is smooth and creamy. Turn stand mixer to medium low and add the vanilla and salt until combined.
- Spread or pipe on your favorite keto cakes and cupcakes! This frosting also freezes really well. Let it come to room temperature again and rewhip lightly before frosting.
- NOTE: I know I will be answering this question over and over so let me just say it straight up. You need the two different sweeteners here! A combination of an erythritol based sweetener, such as Swerve, and one that keeps things softer, such as Bocha Sweet, xylitol, or possibly allulose, is necessary to achieve the correct consistency.
Notes
Jackie says
This is by far the BEST Keto approved frosting I’ve made and I’ve tried them all! I used Monk fruit and Allulose and it was spot on! It never crystallized, stayed smooth and soooo creamy and held shape beautifully! I will be using this for the frosting on a wedding cake I’m making at the end of the month for my friends! I made a test cake for them using this recipe and they raved over it! Perfection!!! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe….it truly is wonderful!
Carolyn says
Yay! Have you checked out the chocolate version that’s on my marble layer cake? So good too!
Shayna says
What is the max amount of time you think this can be left at room temp?
Carolyn says
Several hours.
Jody Kirk says
Thank you so much for this recipe and all your work on everything! I know that you put so much more time in it than we can see or even imagine!
Do you use the powdered bochasweet or regular in this swiss buttercream! Please forgive me if you have already answered this.
Carolyn says
I made this recipe before BochaSweet came out the powdered, so the regular… but you could really use either.
Kat says
Made this with 1/2 cup of splenda, 1/3cup xylitol. As I started to add butter it started to have the curdled look so I warmed rest of butter in microwave til warm but not melted and it all came out beautifully. Fabulously pip-able. Everyone was raving about it – even the skeptics. Nicely done and thanks so much!
Carolyn says
Glad it worked out! The temp of both the egg whites and the butter are crucial but it’s almost always salvageable!
Jennifer says
I used this for my son’s monster smash cake and was really nervous because my local store did not have bocha sweet. I ended up purchasing swerve confectioners and splenda allulose and it worked perfectly! Your tip about the curdled frosting also saved my life as I guess my butter wasn’t quite to room temperature. I made this frosting the night before I was going to use it and forgot to take it out to come to room temperature so it was quite hard when I took it out of the fridge! I’m happy to report that I used the same tip for curdled frosting and placed the bowl of frosting over simmering water until the side started to melt and then I put it back on my stand mixer and it whipped back up beautifully! It was a hit with my 1yr old as well as his 3 yr old brother, 13 yr old sister and daddy!
lisa says
question! I bought the new blend High Key has out.. it has the trifecta sweeteners and it includes allulose .. Im curious if you think this may work.. like would it be enough allulose to keep it from forming crystals.
Carolyn says
I haven’t used it but probably….the whole heating with the egg whites should dissolve it.
maria brent says
Can I use all bochasweet and no swerve/erythritol? Will it work?
Carolyn says
I honestly can’t say for sure, but my experience with BochaSweet is that too much can make things overly soft. I have some ice cream in the freezer that is soft-serve consistency because I overdid the BS.
Tara says
I have made this with every type of keto sweetener out there and not had any issues…even all monk fruits. my fave Is either monk fruit or swerve for the 1/2 cup and then splitting the 1/3 up btwn allulose and xylitol
Christy Scott says
Wonderfully perfect recipe – the texture is unbelievable! I never thought I could enjoy a birthday cake again, at least without the guilt. I used xylitol instead of the Bocha Sweet, because there was no time to order it. I made it last night and left it out to see what it would do. It was just like it was last night when freshly made. Thank you for doing all that experimenting on our behalf!
Carolyn says
Hooray so glad to hear it!
Veronica says
I used to love making Italian meringue buttercream and it’s one of the things I really missed when I went keto. This recipe is exactly the same consistency and just the right amount of sweetness. Thank you for making the keto lifestyle so much easier to stick with!
Carolyn says
Glad you liked it!
Melissa H. says
Thank you so much for this recipe! I’m an avid cupcake baker and I mainly use Swiss Meringue Buttercream. My brother-in-law requested Keto almond cupcakes for our Thanksgiving get-together. This recipe turned out absolutely PERFECT. Added amaretto and almond extract to mine. Thank you so, so much!
Carolyn says
So glad to hear it and YUM on the amaretto!
Stakean says
Would powdered Bocha work better than the granulated?
Carolyn says
Either works. It’s perfect the way it is, there is no “better”.
Corinna says
Wow, I’m hoping you see this that you may be able to help me out with my gorgeous yet too salty icing. My birthday is tomorrow (soon to be today – the 12th) and it’s my first birthday cake on keto. I made your icing and the consistency is like magic (I used allulose, by the way, and I whipped the butter for about 6 minutes before I started, so it’s really dreamy). Trouble is I didn’t realize that my butter was salted and so I added the salt. Now it’s too salty. I also had doubled the recipe so it’s a whole lot of icing that I don’t want to waste. Any ideas for how I can rescue it? I tried blending in a little more swerve (a couple tablespoons more) but it’s still too salty. I left out some more butter in case I need to start over in the morning, but I’m hoping that instead I’ll wake up and find – maybe from your response, if you see this by then – a good idea to save the giant bowl of icing I made tonight. Thank you for sharing this recipe, and for writing such fun pieces with each one of your recipes!
Carolyn says
Oh no! I think what you’re going to need to do is make more and blend them together to reduce the salt factor. You will end up with a lot of frosting but the good news is that you can freeze it for future use.
You could also try just adding in something like chocolate to overpower the salt but then I worry that you’d end up with salty chocolate frosting. One final thought is to leave out all salt in your cake and offset the icing, even if you make more to blend them together.
Corinna says
Thanks so much for your input!
I ended up making a new frosting the next morning and the cake was delicious.
I also saved the giant amount of salty-sweet frosting I’d made the day before and with about half of it I tried adding chocolate, and the other half vanilla. Over the following week I used both flavors straight outta the fridge for adding to other baked goods that I made without salt. That worked perfectly and I used every drop (eventually).
Thanks again for helping me make (& save!) a phenomenal birthday treat!
Carolyn says
So glad it worked out!
Evie says
I wanted something besides a cream cheese frosting for my husband’s birthday cake and stumbled across this recipe yesterday. Let me just say that I am pretty much an amateur when it comes to something with this many steps and finicky processes and it came out PERFECTLY thanks to your instructions. I used a combination of powdered lakanto and allulose and it was silky smooth today, after being in the fridge overnight. This recipe is fantastic and I will absolutely make it again.
Carolyn says
I am so delighted to hear that! It’s definitely a multistep recipe but it’s also rather forgiving since if it doesn’t turn out, there are ways to correct it.
Nicole says
I used this to fill my Neapolitan macarons for a diabetic BBQ. To die for!
Thank you
Carolyn says
Nice!
Dawn says
I’d like to make this icing but the area that I’m in, I’m very limited for keto products. Would this icing work with liquid stevia?
Carolyn says
No, I am sorry it won’t. It needs a bulk sweetener.
Leslie Ange says
Absolutely fantastic! I could not tell that this was a sugar free frosting, nor could my hubby. Delicious perfection!
Carolyn says
So glad to hear it!
Kat d says
I love your recipes. Thank you so much. But I would like to ask that you mention the ingredient for the sweeteners. Swerve andBocha are both brand names and don’t tell you what the actual ingredient is. I found when ordering online that often there are several sweeteners by swerve for example.
Carolyn says
When I say “Swerve” it means granulated. When I say “powdered Swerve” it means powdered. Since Swerve is a specific formulation, I can’t call it by anything else. Also as far as I know, there is no other sweetener exactly like Bocha Sweet. So I have to call them by the brand name.
Rachel says
I love this recipe. I was about to experiment with sugar substitutes with a standard SMBC recipe, but I figured why reinvent the wheel and I googled 🙂 I actually felt it needed to be a bit sweeter, so I added some additional powdered sweetener at the end and it turned out fine.
Thanks so much for all your great recipes.
Michelle says
Could I use only Lakanto (monkfruit) powdered sweetener in place of both the Swerve and Bocha?
Carolyn says
Yes… but it will recrystallize and that kind of defeats the purpose here.
Heather says
Amaizing! Hands down the BEST low carb frosting I have ever had. Worked like a charm, no issues following your instructions. I didn’t have unsalted butter, so I used regular and left out the salt. I also didn’t have boca sweet, so I used a mixture of Erythritol and xylitol. Thank you!
Sue says
Thanks for sharing the substitutions Heather!
Roel Ciubal says
Could I use Powdered swerve with Monkfruit sweetner?
Carolyn says
If your monk fruit sweetener is mostly erythritol, then it will likely re-crysallize as it sits and cools.
Emily says
I never post on these but I make a ton of your recipes. I just wanted to say this one really was a game changer!!! Now I need a cake recipe taken to the next level to match this perfect buttercream.