This frosting has no sugar, no gluten, no dairy.  Just coconut cream and coconut butter, and extracts like vanilla, stevia, and others to sweeten and flavor it.  It keeps several days and is spreadable (and pipeable!) at room temperature, but will keep longer in the fridge if you need it to.  The consistency is creamy and frosting-y and delicious.

No, really.  The only downside to this frosting is that you need to cook it in advance of needing it so it has time to cool.  Okay, and also that the ingredients aren’t cheap — unless you can make completely smooth coconut butter with a blender at home (a feat I’ve personally never accomplished), you really need to buy the good stuff so your frosting is completely smooth, too.  And you really need a creamy, smooth coconut cream that uses guar gum as a stabilizer, so you need to be able to tolerate guar gum.

Okay, so, three very small downsides.  But it’s worth it.  🙂

Paleo Frosting

Yield:  1/2 cup frosting (about half of what you need to frost one 9″ cake round conservatively)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut cream (I use Native Forest Organic Coconut Cream)
• 1/4 cup coconut butter (I use Artisana)
• 3/8 tsp liquid stevia extract
• 1/16 tsp vanilla extract
• optionally, other ingredients for flavor, such as 1/8 tsp lemon extract, 3/4 tsp raspberry extract, or 1 T cocoa powder
• also optionally, food coloring

Directions:

1.  Start a saucepan half-full of water heating on medium heat.  Put your jar of coconut butter in the water, standing up, to start gently melting the butter till it’s soft enough to spoon out of the jar and measure.

2.  Meanwhile, pick out a metal mixing bowl wide enough to sit over the saucepan, like you would to melt chocolate.  Measure the remaining ingredients (coconut cream, stevia, vanilla, and any other flavorings and/or food coloring) into the bowl and whisk to combine.

3.  Once the coconut butter’s warmed enough to measure, carefully take the jar out of the hot water, measure out your coconut butter, and add it to the mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients.

4.  Put the mixing bowl over the hot steaming water in the saucepan (again, as you would to melt chocolate).  Stir occasionally until the coconut butter is completely melted so that the mixture is completely smooth, with no lumps.  Taste, and adjust your flavorings and/or food coloring if needed.

5.  Remove from heat and let cool until thick enough to spread or pipe like icing (up to several hours in the fridge)!